Orpheus Builds A Girl – Heather Parry in conversation with Julia Armfield, at Libreria
7:00 pm -
Join award-winning authors Heather Parry and Julia Armfield for a discussion of Heather’s debut novel Orpheus Builds A Girl. Based on a true story, this is a novel of sisterly love, sinister obsession and the battle for control of the story. Wilhelm Von Tore is dying. As he looks back on his life he reflects […]
Libreria LibreriaJoin award-winning authors Heather Parry and Julia Armfield for a discussion of Heather’s debut novel Orpheus Builds A Girl. Based on a true story, this is a novel of sisterly love, sinister obsession and the battle for control of the story.
Wilhelm Von Tore is dying. As he looks back on his life he reflects on his upbringing in Dresden, his beloved grandmother and his medical career. But mostly he remembers the love of his life, Luci, the dark-haired beauty promised to him in a dream years before they met.
Though only together for a few months in her first life, their love is written in the stars. Using scientific research compiled over decades, Wilhelm ensures that, for him and Luci, death is only the beginning.
Yet, through the cracks in Wilhelm’s recollection there is another voice, that of Gabriela, who will not let this version of events go unchallenged. She tells the story of her sister Luciana, fearless and full of life, and the madman who robbed her from her grave.
This is a one for fans of Carmen Maria Machado, Ottessa Moshfegh and, of course, Julia Armfield.
About the authors:
Heather Parry is an established writer and founder of literary magazine Extra Teeth, whose credits include The Stinging Fly and New Writing Scotland 35. She won the 2016 Bridge Award for an Emerging Writer, and Cove Park’s 2017 Emerging Writer residency. In 2021 she was a Hawthornden Fellow. Her work has also been performed at The Edinburgh International Book Festival.
Julia Armfield is a fiction writer and occasional playwright with a Master’s in Victorian Art and Literature from Royal Holloway University. She was shortlisted for the 2019 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. She was commended in the Moth Short Story Prize 2017, longlisted for the Deborah Rogers Award 2018, and won the White Review short story prize 2018. Her critically acclaimed short story collection, salt slow, was published in 2019. She won the Pushcart Prize in 2020.