New Romani Writing: Damian Le Bas, Karen Downs-Barton, Madeline Potter, Chaired by Bidisha

Damian Le Bas is a writer, filmmaker and visual artist. His first book The Stopping Places won the Somerset Maugham Award, a Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award, and was shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year. Damian is widely published as a journalist and poet and has taught for the Arvon foundation. The Drowned Places, a personal history of the myth of the underwater world, is his second book.

Karen Downs-Barton is an Anglo-Romani writer who, after a peripatetic childhood including times in state care, now lives in Wiltshire. Winner of the Cosmo Davenport-Hines prize (2021) and Creative Future silver medallist (2022) she holds a PhD from King’s College London, exploring identity through minority languages and multilingualism in entertainment industries. Her pamphlet Didicoy was published by the Poetry Business in 2023 and selected as a Poetry Book Society Choice that year. Her debut collection, Minx, evoking the life of a multi-racial Romani family, was published to great acclaim in 2025.

Madeline Potter was born in Romania in 1989 and grew up Romani in nineties post-Communist Romania. She now lives in Scotland and is a scholar of nineteenth-century literature at the University of Edinburgh, having earned her PhD from the University of York in 2020. Her academic monograph, Theological Monsters, was published in 2024. The Roma: A Travelling History, a history of Romani communities, is her first trade book.

This discussion will be chaired by broadcaster, journalist and presenter, Bidisha. Bidisha currently works for BBC TV and radio, Sky News, CNN, Channel 5, The Guardian and The Observer. Her most recent books are Asylum and Exile: Hidden Voices and the bound essay, The Future of Serious Art.

The discussion will be followed by an audience Q&A and book signing. Doors will open from 6:45pm.

Tickets: £10 General Admission / £8 Foyalty Member Venue: The Auditorium (Level 6) at Foyles, 107 Charing Cross Road*

*Please note that the Auditorium at Foyles is fully accessible from the Ground floor lifts.