Joseph O’Connor, the incomparable author of nine novels, short stories, radio diaries, film scripts and stage plays joins us to discuss his career and his newly-published novel, Shadowplay. In 2004 Star of the Sea was an international bestseller, selling over a million copies across 38 languages, and his new novel is sure to follow the same trajectory. It is a masterful account of Bram Stoker’s life as a young man in London working with Henry Irving, the world’s first superstar actor, as they both fall under the spell of dazzling actress Ellen Terry. Shadowplay explores the complexities of love that stands dangerously outside social convention, the restlessness of creativity, and the experiences that led to Dracula, the most iconic supernatural tale of all time. In conversation with journalist, writer and current affairs presenter, Olivia O’Leary.

‘There are few living writers who can take us back in time so assuredly, with such sensual density, through such gorgeous sentences. Joseph O’Connor is wonder.’ Peter Carey