St Martin-in-the-Fields’ Autumn Lecture Series 2024 brings together a group of inspirational speakers to share their own sources of inspiration. What are the influences that form our identity, our faith, our beliefs, our creativity and the values by which we live? What are the things in our own lives that mark us, change us, challenge us and make us who we are? Leading figures from the world of politics, art, culture, history, media and faith talk about the formative influences of their lives and challenge us to reflect upon our own sources of inspiration and the values for which we live or long.

“These lectures and talks offer us a privileged insight into the hearts and souls of people who shape our public consciousness today, and offer us opportunities to ponder and feel gratitude for our own sources of inspiration.” Revd Dr Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Zadie Smith is the author of the novels White Teeth, The Autograph Man, On Beauty, NW, Swing Time, and The Fraud (2023) as well as three collections of essays, Changing My Mind, Feel Free and Intimations, and a collection of short stories, Grand Union. Zadie Smith is currently a tenured professor of fiction at New York University and a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is a regular contributor to the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books.