Organised by The Guardian
Join Susanna Clarke, winner of the 2021 Women’s prize for fiction, for a livestreamed discussion of her novel, Piranesi.
The novel’s titular character lives in a vast house that contains the ocean. He spends his days wandering the endless halls and documenting his discoveries and thoughts, and it is through this otherworldly examination of isolation that Clarke explores profound questions about freedom.
Piranesi is Clarke’s second novel, following the widely acclaimed Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, which Neil Gaiman described as “unquestionably” the finest English fantasy novel of the last 70 years. On awarding the Women’s prize to Piranesi, Bernardine Evaristo, chair of the judging panel, said that Clarke had “created a world beyond our wildest imagination that also tells us something profound about what it is to be human."
Clarke will talk to Nesrine Malik, Guardian columnist and Women’s prize judge, about her inspirations for the novel, and how a quiet story of isolation published during the pandemic became fascinatingly relevant to our own lives.
Running time: 60 minutes
Closed captions will be available for this event.