Wednesday 27th March 2019
John Lanchester on The Wall, with Razia Iqbal
John Lanchester writes with such clarity and effectiveness that his prose is a pleasure I always look forward to. His previous novels have all been memorable evocations of the world we’re familiar with, but The Wall is something new: almost an allegory, almost a dystopian-future warning, partly an elegant study of the nature of storytelling itself. I was hugely impressed by it.
Philip Pullman
Kavanagh begins his life patrolling the Wall. If he’s lucky, if nothing goes wrong, he has only two years of this: 729 more nights…
The Wall is the long-awaited new novel from John Lanchester, bestselling author of Capital.A thrilling and hypnotic work of fiction, it is a mystery story, a love story, a war story and a story about a voyage. The Wall is a novel about why the young are right to distrust the old. It’s about a broken world you will recognise as your own – and about what might be found when all is lost.
Don’t miss the chance to come along to Dulwich Books and hear John Lanchester talk about this fascinating new novel and about why he has turned to dystopian fiction in order to address our current political climate. He will be in conversation with Razia Iqbal. Razia is one of the main presenters of Newshour, the flagship current affairs programme on the BBC World Service and has worked at the BBC for 30 years.
John Lanchester in conversation with Razia Iqbal on The Wall
Dulwich Books, 6 Croxted Road, West Dulwich, SE21 8SW
Wednesday 27thMarch 2019 from 19.00 – 20.30
Tickets £10 (Admission) £22 (Admission + copy of The Wall)
Wednesday 3rdApril
Secret Histories: Damian Barr with Sarah Perry
Barr has captured the threads of all of human history. You Will Be Safe Here is as unexpected as it is unsettling.
Aminatta Forna
South Africa, 1901, the height of the second Boer War. Sarah van der Watt and her son are taken from their farm by force to Bloemfontein Concentration Camp where, the English promise: they will be safe.
Johannesburg, 2010. Sixteen-year-old outsider Willem just wants to be left alone with his books and his dog. Worried he’s not turning out right, his ma and her boyfriend send him to New Dawn Safari Training Camp. Here they ‘make men out of boys’. Guaranteed.
Inspired by real events, You Will Be Safe Hereuncovers a hidden colonial history and present-day darkness while exploring our capacity for cruelty and kindness. This is the debut novel from Damian Barr, whose awarding-winning memoir, Maggie & Me, was about coming of age and coming out in Thatcher’s Britain. He is the creator and host of the marvellous Literary Salon.
We are thrilled that Damian will be with us on the evening before the publication day of You Will Be Safe Here. He will be talking about his novel with Sarah Perry, author of Dulwich Books favourites, The Essex Serpentand Melmoth. Both You Will Be Safe Hereand Melmothconsider the links between hidden legacies of history and the present. Don’t miss what is sure to be a fantastic discussion about this wonderful debut novel and about how fiction can be used to illuminate the past.
Damian Barr in conversation with Sarah Perry on You Will Be Safe Here
Dulwich Books, 6 Croxted Road, West Dulwich, SE21 8SW
Wednesday 3rdApril 2019 from 19.00 – 20.30
Tickets £10 (Admission) or £22 (Admission + copy of You Will Be Safe Here)