John Gray

Gray is a controversial political philosopher who is School Professor of English Thought at the London School of Economics. His writings appear in many leading British periodicals and his books, including Straw dogs which attacked humanist thought and so many things so many people hold dear that the reviews were highly divergent and often savage and you might think there was almost nothing in the future to be optimistic about. His latest book, Black mass: apocalyptic religion and death of Utopia, has once again caused a lot of attention on this writer whose history includes support of the New Right in the 1980s and then New Labour in the 1990s.

He may be a pessimist but it’s been said that he’s been a consistent pessimist and he’ll keep on being a pessimist till the day he dies! Being a pessimist doesn’t, however, make him dull and uninteresting and his session could well be the highlight of the festival. He’s been called “the world’s most pessimistic man” and it will be interesting to see if this Victor Meldrew of the book world fits that description.

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