Sir Terry Pratchett will become the first-ever novelist to give the prestigious annual Richard Dimbleby Lecture on 1 February 2010. The lecture, named for the immensely well-respected BBC broadcaster (and father of Question Time host David Dimbleby), is given every year by a different figure. Past lecturers have included Prince Charles, Prince Philip, Richard Dawkins and Bill Clinton.
Pratchett's lecture will be entitled 'Shaking Hands With Death' and will explore how society needs to adjust to confront the needs of an increasingly large population of elderly people, many of whom will have health problems and all of whom are living longer than ever before. This is a subject dear to Pratchett's heart, as he was diagnosed with a variant form of Alzheimer's two years ago and admits it would have been difficult to pursue the treatments he has done without the financial back-up from the success of his Discworld series of novels.
4 comments:
His doco about living with alzheimer's was quite interesting, and rather sad as well. Should be a good speech with plenty of dark humour (I hope).
The Alzheimers documentary was pretty tragic, and left me with nothing but tremendous respect and admiration for the man and his newfound sense of purpose in getting more done about this disease.
I”m a rabid fan of his work, and have been, for years: and I saw — and was in tears at — the Alzheimer's documentary he did.
Thanks for posting this up, Adam: do we have a broadcast time for it?
I think it's covered live by radio and then there's TV coverage at some other point. We'll know more closer to the time.
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