Tuesday 12th November, 7.30pm. Venue: The Lyttleton Well, Malvern. Ticket £9
John Boyne is the author of fifteen novels for adults, six for younger
readers, and a collection of short stories. His 2006 novel The Boy in the
Striped Pyjamas has sold more than 11 million copies worldwide and has
been adapted for cinema, theatre, ballet, and opera. His many international
bestsellers include The Heart’s Invisible Furies and A Ladder to the Sky. He
has won four Irish Book Awards, including Author of the Year in 2022, along
with a host of other international literary prizes.
John will talk about his quartet of intimate, interlinked novels including the newly published third book in the series, Fire. Fire follows Water and Earth.
Fire:
Freya suffered immense abuse as a child, giving her a warped view of justice as an adult. This intensely
visceral and challenging narrative examines themes of nature vs nurture, personal retribution and apathy
as Freya forces readers to subvert their ideas of what a predator is.
On the face of it, Freya lives a gilded existence, dancing solely to her own tune. She has all the trappings
of wealth and privilege, a responsible job as a surgeon specialising in skin grafts, a beautiful flat in a
sought-after development, and a flash car. But it wasn’t always like this. Hers is a life founded on darkness.
Did what happened to Freya as a child one fateful summer influence the adult she would become – or was
she always destined to be that person? Was she born with cruelty in her heart or did something force it
into being?
In Fire, John Boyne takes the reader on a chilling, uncomfortable but utterly compelling psychological
journey to the epicentre of the human condition, asking the age-old question: nurture – or nature?