Events

A young woman has agreed with her faithless husband: it's time for them to separate. For the moment it's a private matter, a secret between the two of them. As she begins her new life, alone, she gets word that her ex-husband has gone missing in a remote region in the rugged southern Peloponnese. Reluctantly she agrees to go and search for him, still keeping their split to herself. In her heart, she's not even sure if she wants to find him. Adrift in the wild and barren landscape, she traces the failure of their relationship, and finds that she understands less than she thought about the man she used to love. A story of intimacy, infidelity and compassion, A Separation is about the gulf that divides us from the lives of others and the narratives we create to mask our true emotions. As the narrator reflects upon her love for a man who may never have been what he appeared, Kitamura propels us into the experience of a woman on the brink of catastrophe. A Separation is a riveting masterpiece of absence and presence that will leave the reader astonished, and transfixed.Read More

Join us for dinner and chat at the Wharf Restaurant at the Talyllyn Railway in Tywyn, with Rebecca F. John and help her launch her new book 'The Haunting of Henry Twist' Tickets are £15 to include Food and a £5 book token for one of Rebecca's books. THE HAUNTING OF HENRY TWIST by Rebecca F John Is there a love so powerful it can bring someone back to life? London, 1926: Henry Twist's heavily pregnant wife leaves home to meet a friend. On the way, she is hit by a bus and killed, though miraculously the baby survives. Henry is left with nothing but his new daughter - a single father in a world without single fathers. He hurries the baby home, terrified that she'll be taken from him. Racked with guilt and fear, he stays away from prying eyes, walking her through the streets at night, under cover of darkness. But one evening, a strange man steps out of the shadows and addresses Henry by name. The man says that he has lost his memory, but that his name is Jack. Henry is both afraid of and drawn to Jack, and the more time they spend together, the more Henry sees that this man has echoes of his dead wife. His mannerisms, some things he says ... And so Henry wonders, has his wife returned to him? Has he conjured Jack himself from thin air? Or is he in the grip of a sophisticated con man? Who really sent him? Set in a London recovering from the First World War, The Haunting of Henry Twist is a novel about the limits and potential of love and of grief. It is about the lengths we will go to hold on to what is precious to us, what we will forgive of those we love, and what we will sacrifice for the sake of our own happiness. About the author Rebecca F. John was born in 1986, and grew up in Pwll, a small village on the South Wales coast. Her short stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. In 2014, she was highly commended in the Manchester Fiction Prize. In 2015, her short story 'The Glove Maker's Numbers' was shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award. She is the winner of the PEN International New Voices Award 2015, and the British participant of the 2016 Scritture Giovani project. Her first short story collection, Clown's Shoes, was published by Parthian. She lives in Swansea with her three dogs.Read More

Curious is a festival like no other. Taking place each July in the breathtaking grounds of Pylewell Park, it is dreamy, eccentric, fun and ultimately, irresistible. It's very English on the one hand - expect fabulous novelists, exceptional historians, poet laureates, dogs on leads, gin and tonics, and sitting on a deckchair with a view of the Solent although you are just as likely to find yourself on a secret midnight bat-walk, betting your life-savings on the snail-racing, reciting a sonnet on top of an elegantly restored old routemaster or listening to some of the UK's most exciting musicians. Curious is an experience not just a few tents in a field and is lovingly curated by a small team headed up by Clare Conville, Patrick Keogh and Rory Steel.Read More

Winner of the Nigeria Prize for Literature, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim presents Season of Crimson Blossoms, his powerful novel revolving around an affair between a 55 year old widow and a 25 year old gang leader. Dorit Rabinyan arrives with her bestseller, All the Rivers, a haunting story of an Israeli translator and a Palestinian painter, which was banned in Israeli schools for its frank and tender depiction of a taboo relationship. Come and meet two exceptional writers on the subject of love. Chaired by William Sutcliffe.Read More

Major technological changes appear to occur on a monthly basis, so predicting what the future will look like in a couple of years seems like an impossible task. The Economist's executive editor Daniel Franklin is unafraid of a challenge and is here to talk about the technology of 2050. He reveals how scientists, academics and innovators of all types are pondering the shape of things to comeRead More

The United States has a long history of offering shelter to people fleeing conflict but that proud legacy has been overshadowed in recent months. Members of the media are accused of lying if they disagree with the party line and ordinary citizens face their freedoms being eroded further. Reading work around the subject today are authors Petina Gappah, Heinz Helle, Christine Otten and James Oswald.Read More

American poet, novelist, performer, arts journalist and inspiration for a character in the Amazon series Transparent, Eileen Myles is, in the New Yorker's words 'a kickass countercultural icon', and 'a loudmouthed lesbian' in her own. She makes her Book Festival debut with I Must Be Living Twice: New and Selected Poems 1975-2014, which is published alongside her cult novel Chelsea Girls. Meet a unique talent. Chaired by Jenny Niven.Read More

DEGREES OF SEPARATION In award-winning author Claire Fuller's pitch perfect Swimming Lessons, the hero looks down from a bookshop window and sees his dead wife standing on the pavement. She'd been missing, presumed drowned, for 12 years. Admired New York writer Katie Kitamura's A Separation centres around a young woman who gets word that her ex-husband has gone missing in a remote part of the Peloponnese. Does she really want to find him?Read More