Readings from two award-winning writers of short fiction. Naomi Booth’s Animals at Night recently won her the reader’s award at the prestigious Edge Hill Short Story competition. Nicholas Royle’s latest book, David Bowie, Enid Blyton and the Sun Machine, is not easy to describe.
Naomi Booth
Naomi Booth’s Animals at Night is a collection of stories that illuminate the strange, nocturnal meetings between humans and other animals. The final story, ‘Sour Hall’, which tells the tale of two female farmers plagued by a boggart, was adapted into an Audible Originals drama series and won the Edgehill Short Story Award Reader’s Prize. Booth is the author of Exit Management, Sealed and The Lost Art of Sinking. Her work has been listed for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award, included in the Guardian’s Best Fiction of the year 2020, and won the Saboteur Award for Best Novella.
Nicholas Royle
In David Bowie, Enid Blyton and the Sun Machine, novelist and academic Nicholas Royle brings together two remarkably different creative figures: Enid Blyton and David Bowie. His exploration of their lives and work delves deeply into questions about the value of art, music and literature.
Royle is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Sussex. He is the author of many books, including Hélène Cixous: Dreamer, Realist, Analyst, Writing (2020), An English Guide to Birdwatching: A Novel (2017), Veering: A Theory of Literature (2011) and The Uncanny (2003).
Organiser: Havana