Acclaimed author to offer insight into manic depression at Wolverhampton lecture

An acclaimed author will give a guest lecture at the University of Wolverhampton next week, discussing issues around her latest book, which documents a year-long episode of manic depression.

Jay Griffiths’ newest work, Tristimania: A Diary of Manic Depression, has received five-star reviews.

It tells the story of a devastating experience of manic depression, culminating in a long solo pilgrimage across Spain. 

The author shows how it is at once terrifying and also profoundly creative, both tricking and treating the psyche. She also explores the condition’s literary influence, including Shakespeare and Gerard Manley Hopkins, and examines the Trickster role, tracing the mercuriality of manic depression through the character of Mercury.

During her lecture, Jay will be in conversation with Professor Niall Griffiths, Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Wolverhampton.

Jay Griffiths is also the author of Pip Pip: A Sideways Look at Time, for which she won the Discover award for the best new non-fiction writer to be published in the USA; Wild: An Elemental Journey, an evocation of the songlines of the earth, which won the inaugural Orion Book Award and Kith: The Riddle of the Childscape.

Her fiction includes A Love Letter from a Stray Moon, about the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, and Anarchipelago, about the road protests. She has written for the comment and feature pages of the Guardian and has contributed to other publications including the Observer, the London Review of Books and Radiohead’s newspaper the Universal Sigh.

The free lecture is part of the Centre for Transnational and Transcultural Research (CTTR) Lecture Series and is open to all. It takes place on Thursday 24 November at 6pm, at the MX Building in Camp Street, Wolverhampton, (room MX004).

For more information, visit: www.wlv.ac.uk/cttr