19 DECEMBER 1970, Page 8

About our contributors:

ROBERT CONQUEST

Educated at Winchester and Magdalen, Oxford. Ex-infantry officer, ex-diplomat, ex- literary editor of the SPECTATOR, ex-aca- demic. Now, historian, poet, science fiction writer, anthologist and critic, and collabora- tor of Kingsley Amis. His most recent books include The Great Terror and Arias from a Love Opera.

JOHN FLETCHER

Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of East Anglia, after spending two years teaching at Durham University. Has written extensively on Samuel Beckett, and on other aspects of modern literature. -His next publication is a volume of essays which he has edited on modern French drama. Regards himself as first and foremost an academic.

G. S. KIRK

Professor-elect of Classics at Bristol; has spent the last six years teaching at Yale, where he saw less and less of his faculty colleague, Eric Segal, as the royalties rolled in. Enjoyed teaching in the States, but finally decided there wasn't much more he could contribute to the soul of the American young. Was at Berkeley during the People's Park disturbances, at Yale during the Black Panther disturbances, and now heading for Zurich in the hope of peace and quiet.

SHIRLEY LETWIN

Lecturer in Philosophy at the London School of Economics, and author of 'The Pursuit of Certainty'. Took at PhD at the University of Chicago, and then came across to study at the ISE between 1948-50 and listen atten- tively to Harold Laski and Karl Popper. Back in Chicago, she sat on a Committee on Social Thought for the University. She has written odd articles, mostly on philosophical subjects, and claims to have an unpublish- able best seller on her hands.

DAVID OWEN, Nit, Labour MP for the Sutton division of Ply- mouth since 1966. A doctor, and a Governor of Charing Cross Hospital, he is married to a literary agent and lives in a converted cafe in Limehouse. Until the General Election, Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Navy—in which capacity he managed to abolish both rum and bell-bottoms.

KATE WHARTON

Born in 1931. Has been assistant editor of The Architect for two and a half years, and a journalist for more years than she cares to remember. Closely connected with the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs, for whom she writes regularly. Answers to the descrip- tion of convent-educated, and has only once been on the wrong side of the law. Has three children, and is married to the columnist Peter Simple.

PATRICK SKENE CATLING

Born in London in 19-25. Spent many years as London correspondent for the Baltimore Sun and then moved, first to work on the Guardian as a feature writer and then to be Assistant Editor of Punch. After this, worked for a year on Newsweek and-then turned to serious writing; mostly novels like The Ex- periment and The Exterminator, and most recently,: The Catalogue,