Robert Graves Society to hold 7th annual conference in Palma

Joan Collins ACADEMICS of 12 countries will come to Majorca in July to take part in the 7th International Conference of the Robert Graves Society, which will analyse the work of people who collaborated with the British writer. The event was announced yesterday by the Balearic Minister of Education and Culture, Francesc Fiol; the director of Culture in Majorca, Guillem Ginard; the Palma councillor of Culture, Rogelio Araujo; the deputy head of research at the Balearic University (UIB), Francesc Muñoz; the writer's daughter, Lucia Graves; and the President of the Robert Graves Society, Dunstan Ward. The conference, which is entitled “Robert Graves and the Art of Collaboration” will take place from July 4-8 in the cultural centre of La Caixa in Palma. This is situated in the old Grand Hotel, “the exact place my father stayed the first time he came to Majorca” said Lucia Graves. The writer's daughter explained that to create his books he worked with a number of collaborators, the best known being Laura Riding, “but he also worked with linguists, translators, Biblical experts and archeologists”. Among the participants at the congress will be the poet Alastair Reid, the writer Max Egremont and Josep Maria Jauma, a professor of Barcelona University who translated part of Robert Graves' works into Catalan. Robert Graves lived in Deya for almost half a century. During the conference there will be a private visit to the former house of the author of “I, Claudius” in Deya and an official reception hosted by Palma Council in Bellver Castle, with entertainment from a septet of woodwind and strings from the Balearic Symphony Orchestra. The Sa Riera building of the Balearic University will have an exhibition of the books published by the writer. Representatives from the Regiment of the Welsh Fusiliers, with which Robert Graves served, will also visit Majorca and will render an emotional tribute to the author at his grave in Deya.