Frederic Raphael at Oxford Literary Festival

Novelist and screenwriter Frederic Raphael talks to fellow writer David Pryce-Jones about two thousand years of persecution of the Jews and explains how the Jewish religion continues to thrive despite this history of violence.

Raphael was born into a Jewish family, and a fight against anti-Semitism has been a consistent theme of his life and writing. He has written Anti-Semitism as part of a new Provocationsseries of short polemics by leading voices in contemporary culture. He looks back over 2,000 years to explain why people have been killing Jews for so long. He says anti-Judaism mutated into anti-Semitism and has now mutated into anti-Israelism.

Raphael has written more than 20 novels. He won an Oscar for his screenplay for Darling and his was named Royal Television Society Writer of the Year for his BBC adaptation of his novel,The Glittering Prizes. He talks about his memoir, Going Up: To Cambridge and Beyond, at a second festival event. Pryce-Jones is a novelist, former literary editor of the Financial Timesand The Spectator, and author of Betrayal: France, the Arabs, and the Jews, and The Closed Circle.

Tickets: £12 online.