Choice: Talk: Walter Mosley

Walter Mosley, South Bank Centre, London SE1

(0171-960 4242) 7.30pm

When Gillian Taylforth (aka "Kaff" in EastEnders) lost her famous "lay- by" court case, the air was thick with predictable jokes at her expense. As the so-called Zippergate furore grows ever louder, the question "Name Bill Clinton's favourite novelist" sounds like an invitation to crack several more in a similar vein. But before you set about constructing supremely tasteless puns, the answer is (rather famously), Walter Mosley (above) and his crime stories about Ezekiel Porterhouse Rawlins which first saw the light of day within the publication of Devil in a Blue Dress. "Easy" is the central character in a series of perfectly poised novels set amid the bungalows, drinking clubs and back streets of black Los Angeles which balance all those topics which tasteful people were once abjured from raising at dinner: politics, sex and race. All of which makes him a perfect candidate for tonight's talk on race relations in the South Bank's "Sounding the Century" season.