Join us at Libreria, as we welcome Simon Okotie & Lara Pawson for a discussion about the novel’s future.

We’re used to the novel being declared dead, dying, or endangered. Seemingly every few years, a critic will read it the last rites – yet the form remains more popular than ever with readers.

In The Future of the Novel, author Simon Okotie presents a bold future for long-
form fiction, and suggests its evolution is far from over. Using John Carruthers’ 1927 book Scheherezade, or The Future of the English Novel, as a starting point, Okotie then cites others who have since meditated on the direction of the form, including Henry James, D. H. Lawrence, William Burroughs, Anaïs Nin, Zadie Smith and China Miéville.

All of which informs Okotie’s own vision for the novel of tomorrow – one that extends even further into the reaches of the subconscious, and doesn’t shy away from the uneasy role artificial intelligence will inevitably play in coming decades. The Future of The Novel is a rich and immersive portrait of an artform which, despite constant claims to the contrary, is more alive and exciting than ever.

Simon Okotie is a fiction writer and essayist. He is the author of Whatever Happened to Harold Absalon?, In the Absence of Absalon and After Absalon, an acclaimed trilogy of novels published by Salt. He lives in London.