Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Thursday 28 February
6:15 PM - 7:15 PM
A.M. Homes’ latest novel, May We Be Forgiven, began life as a short story commissioned by Zadie Smith. Salman Rushdie calls it ‘flat-out amazing’. Jeanette Winterson is a fan.
Homes has long had a devoted US following for her surreal suburban satires. With this surprise bestseller about a man who inherits his brother’s family in the strangest of ways (involving adultery, murder and prison), she’s become a worldwide literary star.
Often compared to Cheever and Updike, she pioneers her own distinctive brand of satire, veering between irony and sincerity, doom and redemption. Along the way, she coolly observes the absurdities of contemporary life.
In conversation with Jenny Niven.
Featuring
Jenny Niven
Jenny Niven was the Wheeler Centre’s Associate Director. She is currently Portfolio Manager for Literature, Publishing and Languages at Creative Scotland.
Jenny came to Australia in early 2010 after 6 years in Beijing, where she directed the events program at The Bookworm, China’s foremost English-language literary events venue. She was director and co-founder of The Bookworm International Literary Festival, which runs annually across the three Chinese cities of Beijing, Chengdu and Suzhou.
Jenny was books editor at Time Out Beijing from 2006 to 2008. She contributed to Beijing: Portrait of a City, published by Odyssey in March 2008, as well as numerous travel guides. She joined the Wheeler Centre staff after holding the position of Program Manager at the Melbourne Writers Festival.
Jenny is originally from Scotland where, prior to leaving in 2004, she gained an undergraduate degree in Scottish Literature and Film and a masters degree in journalism. She was an arts researcher for Hopscotch Films and BBC Scotland and spent April and May 08 and 09 working on the PEN World Voices Festival in New York. In case it isn’t already crystal clear, she likes books and travel.
A.M. Homes
A.M. Homes is the author of the novels, This Book Will Save Your Life, Music for Torching, The End of Alice, In a Country of Mothers and Jack, two collections of short stories, Things You Should Know and The Safety of Objects and the highly acclaimed memoir, The Mistress’s Daughter, as well as the travel memoir, Los Angeles: People, Places and the Castle on the Hill.
She is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and writes frequently on arts and culture for numerous magazines and newspapers. She is currently writing for a new major US TV series. She lives in New York City.