Manchester Literature Festival announces two more events for its Spring Summer season with Natalie Haynes and Andrew Sean Greer ahead of the main festival in October.
Festival favourite bestselling author and broadcaster Natalie Haynes returns to Manchester on 15 June to discuss her powerful new novel No Friend to This House - an extraordinary reimagining of the myth of Medea.
Based on Euripides’s classic tragedy, No Friend to This House explores love, vengeance, power and survival as Medea faces an impossible choice that will change the course of her and her family’s lives. Known for her bold and compassionate retellings of Greek mythology, placing one of literature’s most misunderstood women centre stage, Natalie brings fresh life to this ancient story.
Natalie Haynes is a Sunday Times bestselling author and award-winning broadcaster. She is the author of: The Amber Fury; A Thousand Ships; Stone Blind and The Children of Jocasta, a feminist retelling of the Oedipus and Antigone stories. Her non-fiction works include: The Ancient Guide to Modern Life; Pandora’s Jar; and Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth. She has written and presented eleven series of BBC Radio 4’s Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics and is celebrated for bringing Greek myth and classical history to a wide contemporary audience.
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Andrew Sean Greer introduces his dazzling and witty new novel Villa Coco in Manchester on 23 June.
Andrew Sean Greer says: “What ever happened to the ‘charm novel’? You know, the kind of warm and funny story packed with characters and incident and description – something like Graham Greene used to call his ‘entertainments’, or Nancy Mitford wrote based on her eccentric family, or Gerald Durrell about his own? There used to be a kind of novel where you wanted to remain in its pages forever: a world in which even the worst of circumstances could provide a funny story and a sense of hope. A book to reread yearly as a balm to the soul.
We’ve certainly needed them the past few years. At least: I’ve needed them. But I couldn’t find any modern ones. So, I decided to write one.”
Broke and directionless, a young American takes a mysterious job assisting Lisabetta – known as Coco – a formidable aristocrat living in a crumbling Tuscan villa. He believes he has been hired to catalogue the contents of the beautiful mansion nestled in the green hills; his real duties are yet to be discovered. The days soon fill with eccentric guests, missing martens and schemes involving long-lost love as the secrets of Villa Coco slowly come to light. This sun-soaked adventure is an unforgettable story of the enduring power of friendship.
Andrew Sean Greer is the bestselling author of eight books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Less. From 2016 – 2018, Greer was the first Executive Director of the Santa Maddalena Foundation, working alongside the president Beatrice Monti della Corte to invite authors from around the world for a writing residence in Tuscany.
The Spring programme, on sale now, continues with Booker Prize-winning novelist Douglas Stuart (26 May) introducing his profoundly moving new novel John of John set on the Isle of Harris, and Women’s Fiction Prize-winning novelist Tayari Jones (2 June), discussing her highly anticipated new novel Kin, a richly told tale about mothers, daughters and lifelong friendship in the American South in the 1950s. Both events are presented in partnership with the Centre for New Writing and Creative Manchester.
Listings information
Natalie Haynes, Monday 15 June, 7pm
Central Library, Manchester.
Tickets £12/£10
Event page: https://
Andrew Sean Greer, Tuesday 23 June, 7pm
Waterstones, Deansgate, Manchester
Tickets £10/£8
Event page: https://
Tayari Jones, Tuesday 2 June, 7pm
Central Library, Manchester.
Tickets £12/£10
Event page: https://
Douglas Stuart, Tuesday 26 May, 7pm
Contact, Manchester.
Tickets £15/£13
Event page: https://
