Returning to the University of East Anglia as a celebrated alumna, Ward delivered this year's Noirwich Lecture, Reading with the Body, to an engrossed audience in the Drama Studio.

Dressed in an ethereal lilac gown, she immediately commanded attention, combining sharp literary insight with warmth, humour and an infectious enthusiasm for storytelling.

UEA alumna Catriona Ward delivered this year's Noirwich Lecture (Image: UEA)

Her lecture explored the central role of the body in crime, gothic and uncanny fiction, from serial killers to corpses and the eerie absences that haunt novels such as The Haunting of........

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