Literary Society of Geneva have an English-language programme this September

Listen Again - to World Radio Switzerland

The Société de Lecture hold English-speaking events approximately once per month in Geneva, but this month will be an exception. In collaboration with AMERICA festival, the biggest festival of English-language literature in France, located near Paris, the Société de Lecture in Geneva has invited esteemed authors of fiction, non-fiction and screenwriting to hold talks and be interviewed between 24 - 30 September.

Emmanuel Tagnard, Programming and Communications Manager who also runs the English-language events, joins Katt Cullen in the studio on the WRS Breakfast Show...

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Stephen Markley, Tuesday 24 September, 19:00-20:30 talks (drinks from 18:30).

Interview conducted by Payal Parekh, climate justice expert

In his latest novel, ‘The Deluge’, Stephen Markley tackles the burning issue of climate change. A subject that may well resonate in the run-up to COP25. Born in 1983, Stephen Markley is an American journalist and author, whose first acclaimed novel Ohio (2018) focused on a single night in a blue-collar town. The novel is currently being adapted for television in the United States. His second and latest novel The Deluge is a dystopian epic about climate change, spanning the years 2013 through to the 2030s. According to Stephen King, Stephen Markley’s latest novel is “prophetic, terrifying, uplifting”.

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Colson Whitehead, Wednesday 25 September, 19:00-20:30 talks (drinks from 18:30).

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Colson Whitehead is not attached to a single writing style. The Intuitionist, the first of his eight novels, used mystery and allegory to tell the story of elevator repairmen from competing schools of thought in a future dystopia. Zone One (2011) gave us a pandemic and zombie apocalypse. His latest, Crook Manifesto finds its place on the crime and suspense shelves. Set in the author’s native New York, the book is the second instalement in a planned trilogy that started in the 1960s with Harlem Shuffle published in 2022, in which otherwise upstanding Harlem furniture salesman Ray Carney is made an unwilling criminal.

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Anthony Sattin: Nomads, Thursday 26 September, 19:00-20:30 talks (drinks from 18:30).

Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Anthony Sattin is an author, journalist and broadcaster, as well as contributing editor to Condé Nast Traveller and editorial advisor on Geographical Magazine. He lives between London and the Middle East. His highly acclaimed books of history and travel include Young Lawrence, A Winter on the Nile, The Pharaoh's Shadow, The Gates of Africa and Lifting the Veil. His latest book, Nomads, The Wanderers Who Shaped Our World is a work of history that looks at the shifting relations between nomadic and settled people over the past 12,000 years.

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Terry Hayes: Saturday 28 September, 19:00-20:30 talks (drinks from 18:30).

Interview conducted by Kasmira Jefford, Editor-In-Chief, Geneva Solutions

Terry Hayes is a former journalist and multi award-winning screenwriter. He wrote screenplays for, amongst others, Mad Max 2 - Road Warrior (1981), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), Dead Calm (1989), Payback (1999), Vertical Limit (2000), From Hell (2001). His debut worldwide cult phenomenon was I Am Pilgrim pitted a crack spy against an Islamic terrorist aiming to unleash smallpox on the world. Ten years later, Terry Hayes returns with his latest novel, The Year of the Locust. It is a compelling and sweeping thriller that captures readers’ interest from the first page. Kane, a Denied Access Area spy for the CIA, is being sent to the land borders of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran to try to gather information about an increasingly powerful terrorist group known as the Army of the Pure. An epic that is a hefty read, reminiscent of classic spy novels but with a modern and innovative twist.

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Rachel Cusk: Monday 30 September, 19:00-20:30 talks (drinks from 18:30).

Interview conducted by Clare O’Dea, journalist and author

She has been described as the most French of English novelists. Born in 1967, British writer Rachel Cusk work features women; their aspirations and their difficulties in living in a society built by and for men. Following her autobiographical novels Outline trilogy - Outline (2014), Transit (2016) and Kudos (2018) and her standalone novel Second Place (2020), she returns with Parade, an exhilarating new novel about art, womanhood and violence, one which confronts and upends the conventions of storytelling. Midway through his life, an artist begins to paint upside down. In Paris, a woman is attacked by a stranger in the street. A mother dies. Couples seek escape in distant lands.

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