“That which was and is no more is hidden treasure.” Kate O’Brien, Without My Cloak

When history is counted in events, how do we measure the powerful effect of our inner lives? Two outstanding contemporary writers on creating novels in the long shadow of the past.

Anne Michaels’s award-winning and profoundly moving novel Held, is a story of connections, and consequences. Four generations of one family are tied together by history, memory and trauma. In Held, love can heal even the most grievous pain, and its work can continue long past the span of a life. It was shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize, and won the 2024 Giller Prize. A Canadian novelist and poet, Anne Michaels’s books have been translated into more than 50 languages. Her international awards also include the Orange Prize, the Guardian Fiction Prize, and the Lannan Award for Fiction. She is a Guggenheim Fellow and has served as Toronto’s Poet Laureate.

David Park is an astute storyteller, whose writing is characterized by lucid and luminous observation and emotional intelligence. Ghost Wedding follows two troubled men, who despite being separated by nearly a century are bound by the shadows of the past. This masterful portrait of love and betrayal reveals the many ways the past seeps into the present. His novels include The Big Snow, The Truth Commissioner and The Light of Amsterdam. He was the winner of the Authors’ Club First Novel Award, the Bass Ireland Arts Award for Literature and three-times winner of the University of Ulster’s McCrea Literary Award. He has twice been shortlisted for the Irish Novel of the Year.

In conversation with Roland Gulliver.

Presented with support from the Canada Council for the Arts, Arts Abroad fund.

Duration: 1 hour