The Paris Express
with Emma Donoghue
Hosted by Sean Wilson
Donoghue beautifully crafts a world that captures the vitality and smells and sights of Victorian France, while investigating the different classes who inhabited the same spaces, but lived worlds apart....Donoghue's train is a microcosm of Paris of the times, ready to explode.”
Join Emma Donoghue, the award-winning author of Room, The Wonder, and The Pull of the Stars for a conversation on her latest bestseller, The Paris Express.
The Paris Express is set over a single day, as the morning train travels from the Normandy coast to the capital. Men, women, and children from all over the world take their seats in the passenger cars, which are divided by wealth and status. Among the passengers is an anarchist intent on destruction, a young boy travelling alone, a pregnant woman fleeing her home village for the anonymity of the big city, a medical student who suspects a girl may have a fatal disease, and the railway crew, devoted to the train, to the company, and to each other.
Based on an 1895 catastrophe that was captured in a series of surreal photographs, The Paris Express is a thrilling ride, full of the politics, fears, and chaos of an era not unlike our own.
Books are available from our friends at Perfect Books.
The Ottawa International Writers Festival is supported by generous individuals like you. Please consider subscribing to our newsletter and making a donation to support our programming and children’s literacy initiatives.