Shakespeare and Company

Join members of the Man Booker International Prize panel just days after the announcement of the shortlist of the competition that celebrates the best in international fiction. We’re on brand new territory tonight as, for the first time, the £50,000 prize will be awarded for a single work of translated fiction. The event will feature prize administrator Fiammetta Rocco, chair of judges Boyd Tonkin and judge Daniel Medin. It will be chaired by Lucie Campos and will be introduced by a musical performance by superb singer-songwriter Lail Arad, to coincide with the release of her second record and her book of lyrics The Onion, with exclusive text from Lail and photographs by Flo Kohl.

We’re delighted to host Alex Pheby to read from his historical “neuronovel” Playthings currently shortlisted for the prestigious Wellcome Book Prize. Paul Schreber is a man who wants to go home – but can’t. He is a man crippled by an illness he doesn’t understand – and sometimes doesn’t even know he has. He's no condition to face the worst - but the worst keeps on happening to him. His family is disintegrating, past traumas are coming back to haunt him - and so are those troubling, seemingly laid-to-rest fears of persecution… Paul Schreber is paranoid - and they really are out to get him. Playthings, Alex Pheby's astonishing second novel, delves deep into a disturbed mind - and in doing so, also unearths the roots of the great ills in the twentieth century, the psychological structure of fascism, the cancer of anti-Semitism, and the abuse of institutional power. Based on the true story of a man who became a case study for Freud and a foundation stone in the psychological make-up of the twentieth century, Playthings is an intense and poetic exploration about what it means to be human. It will shake you to the bone.

For this installment of the Art of Criticism we are delighted to welcome Dr. Jane Goldman. Poet, critic, and Reader in English Literature at the University of Glasgow, Jane Goldman is the author of a number of studies of Virginia Woolf and modernism (Cambridge UP), as well as a poetry pamphlet, Border Thoughts (Leamington Books).

At a time when the plight of refugees is making the front pages on a daily basis, join us for an evening with author and researcher Ben Rawlence who will be discussing his essential new book City of Thorns.

Tonight we’ve paired up a fantastic poet and translator to read from and discuss their work.

The Child Poet is an evocative memoir of a child’s dreams, in a stunning translation by the author’s daughter. A celebration of the poet’s life before 1951. Imminent fatherhood helped revive memories that had, for two decades, lain dormant. This work, narrated in a succession of interconnected vignettes, provides a portrait of Homero Aridjis in his pre-poet years. A child at a time when sights and sensations were still delivered at their purest, when each day brought new perceptions of his mother and his father, when every villager in Contepec formed part of a personal mythology. It was a time when shadows were palpable and light had a sound of its own.

We’re delighted to welcome Professor Sandra Spanier, General Editor of The Cambridge Edition of the Letters of Ernest Hemingway to celebrate the publication of Volume 3. This book covers the years 1926 - 1929 a period of particular interest to any fans of The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms, as well as those with an interest in his relationships with Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce and Sylvia Beach.

Few people know Paris like French author Dominique Fabre, which is why we’re so delighted to welcome him to read from his minutely-observed novel, Guys Like Me, a beautiful ode to our city.

We’re excited to launch a new series of events. Writers on Writers, in which one author sings the praises of another. To kick us off, Ithamar Handelman-Smith, writer, columnist and filmmaker will present poet and novelist David Vogel, author of Viennese Romance and Married Life.

We are honoured to welcome author Don DeLillo in the run-up to the launch of his latest novel Zero K. Don DeLillo is the author of fifteen novels, including Zero K, Underworld, Falling Man, White Noise, and Libra. He has won the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the Jerusalem Prize for his complete body of work, and the William Dean Howells Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2010, he was awarded the PEN/Saul Bellow Prize. The Angel Esmeralda was a finalist for the 2011 Story Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. In 2012, DeLillo received the Carl Sandburg Literary Award for his body of work. Photo by Joyce Ravid.

Would you like to know how to be a public author? Francis Plug has the answers. At least, he has some answers. Find out what those are as Plug’s alter ego, Paul Ewen, reads from a novel The Sunday Times called, "A brilliant, deranged new comic creation… The funniest book I've read in years."

What better way to kick off commemorations of 400 years since the Bard’s passing with one of the world’s foremost Shakespeare scholars James Shapiro, talking about his compelling new book 1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of Lear.

Following on from the success of his first novel, Here are the Young Men, join as as Rob Doyle reads from his provocative new short story collection This is the Ritual.

We’re thrilled to introduce Yelena Moskovich, in store to present her much-lauded and intoxicating debut, The Natashas.

We’re delighted to welcome Booker-shortlisted author Steve Toltz to read from his brilliantly anarchic second novel, Quicksand. This event has been organised in association with Steve's French publisher, Belfond.