Ian McEwan speaks at a Royal Society of Literature event

Originality in science is synonymous with being first; originality in the arts is somewhat different.  At what point do these two creative endeavours overlap?  Ian McEwan is a novelist who has often taken science as a subject: Enduring Love was about a science writer, Saturday about a brain surgeon.  His latest novel, Solar, is about global warming and its protagonist is a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who has given up original work to enjoy his own celebrity.  McEwan’s first book, the short stories First Love, Last Rites, was hailed for ‘an originality astonishing for a young man still in his twenties’.  Yet original work by scientists is most often achieved while they are still young: do they develop differently?  Richard Fortey’s original work is on fossils.  He is a research palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum whose books include Trilobite!, shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, and Earth: an intimate history. A Fellow both of the Royal Society and of the Royal Society of Literature, he is a former President of the Geological Society of London.

This event is free for Fellows and Members of the Royal Society of Literature. There are a limited number of tickets available for members of the public at all RSL events. These are sold at the door, from 6pm, on a first-come-first-served basis. We suggest a contribution of £7 (£5 concession). For further information please visit our website http://www.rslit.org, or call us on 02078454676.

Kenneth Clark Lecture Theatre, Courtauld Institute, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA