Description
Joe Dunthorne had always wanted to write about his great-grandfather, Siegfried: an eccentric scientist who invented radioactive toothpaste and a Jewish refugee from the Nazis who returned to Germany under cover of the Berlin Olympics to pull off a heist on his own home. The only problem was that Siegfried had already written the book of his life –an unpublished, two-thousand page memoir so dry and rambling that none of his living descendants had managed to read it. And, as it turned out when Joe finally read the manuscript himself, it told a very different story from the one he thought he knew…
Thus begins a mystery that takes Joe all around the world, resulting in this beautiful meditation on our collective and individual histories and inheritances.
We are thrilled to be joined by Joe to discuss his new book. He will be in conversation with award-winning author Andrew O’Hagan.
Joe Dunthorne is the author of three novels and one collection of poetry, including Submarine, which has been translated into fifteen languages and made into an acclaimed film directed by Richard Ayoade. Children of Radium is his first work of non-fiction.
Andrew O’Hagan is a Scottish novelist and non-fiction author. Three of his novels have been nominated for the Booker Prize and he has won several awards, including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His most recent novel is Caledonian Road (2024). His previous novel Mayflies (2020) won the Christopher Isherwood Prize, and was adapted into a two-part BBC television drama.
Ticket price includes a glass of wine or a soft drink.