Before the Beginning and After the End with Madeleine Thien, Hisham Matar and Johanna Skibsrud
Hosted by Michael Blouin
A tightly coiled, masterfully controlled narrative . . . Anatomy of a Disappearance is a testament to the terrible human cost of unjust government in the Arab world. It is, by design, an artful novel; accident of circumstances has made it a timely one.
Sometimes you can’t outrun history. We welcome three internationally acclaimed talents for an inquiry into pasts that are always present.
Madeleine Thien’s Dogs at the Perimeter, an unblinking portrait of loss and recovered humanity, follows the long shadow of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia into the present day.
In a delicately wrought and beautifully tender voice, Hisham Matar’s extraordinary new novel, Anatomy Of A Disappearance, asks: “When a loved one disappears, how does his or her absence shape the lives of those who are left?” Lyrical and riveting.
Johanna Skibrud’s Giller Prize-winning novel, The Sentimentalists, draws on the horrors of the Vietnam War to examine what lies beneath the surface of everyday life, and of the commanding power of the past.