Maggie O'Farrell and Kate Mosse

Maggie O'Farrell and Kate Mosse chaired by Zoe Venditozzi
Sponsored by Rathbones

7.15pm – 8.15pm BST*

Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet was the winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2020 On a summer's day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a sudden fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home?
Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London. Neither parent knows that Hamnet will not survive the week. Hamnet is a novel inspired by the son of a famous playwright: a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, but whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays ever written.
Following on from the Sunday Times number one bestseller, The Burning Chambers, Kate Mosse’s The City of Tears is a breathtaking novel of revenge, persecution and loss. June 1572: for ten, violent years the Wars of Religion have raged across France. Neighbours have become enemies, countless lives have been lost, and the country has been torn apart over matters of religion, citizenship and sovereignty. But now a precarious peace is in the balance: a royal wedding has been negotiated by Catherine de’ Medici and Jeanne d’Albret, an alliance between the Catholic Crown and Henri, the Huguenot king of Navarre. It is a marriage that could see France reunited at last.

*This performance is live and will be available to watch for three weeks after the broadcast date to accommodate different time zones.
 
This performance is included in the Aye Write 2021 festival pass, so you will not need to purchase this event if you have already purchased a pass.


Books are available to purchase from our bookseller partner Bookshop.org. Bookshop.org supports independent booksellers and for every book purchased 10% comes back to Aye Write and Wee Write, helping to invest in our city’s book festival and reader development programmes.