Panel Discussion: Dear Diary - from the personal to the collective

Date: Tuesday 17 September 2024, 12.00-14.00

Venue: The Weston Room, Maughan Library, King’s College London, Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1LR

For the past 40 years Dylan Jonas Stone has collected over 200 personal diaries, acquired at flea markets, car boot sales and online.  They document the lives of ordinary people – from the 19th century to the 1990s – their joys and sorrows, the humdrum occurrences of daily existence, and those occasions when global events intervened to change their lives.

Hand writing history: 200 years of personal diaries, an exhibition at The Maughan Library, King’s College London, shows highlights from the Dylan Jonas Stone Collection, plus diaries from King’s own special collections and archives. 

In August 2021, as the Taliban approached the gates of Kabul, 21 women writers in Afghanistan came online in their WhatsApp group.  Over the next 12 months, they shared stories of chaos, protest and flight – and of ordinary life continuing. Together, their messages form a powerful chorus of resistance and solidarity using the WhatsApp group chat as a collective diary.  My Dear Kabul: A Year in the Life of an Afghan Women’s Writing Group is published in August 2024 by Coronet. Copies will be on sale at the event. 

Join us to explore the impact and future of personal diaries with Dylan Jonas Stone, and writers from My Dear Kabul, in a panel discussion moderated by Lynne O’Donnell, journalist and author.  

My Dear Kabul will be published in hardback by Coronet on August 15. It is an Untold Narratives project, supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and The Bagri Foundation. 

FREE ADMISSION BUT BOOKING ESSENTIAL 

Tuesday 17 September 

12:00 – Doors open; opportunity to view the exhibition 

12:30 – Discussion starts.  

Tea and coffee provided.  

Host or Publisher Untold Narratives