The EU Prize Winner for Literature, Tomáš Zmeškal, explores marriage, love and destiny on the backdrop of the postwar Czechoslovak history in Love Letter in Cuneiform, a extraordinary family saga. Focusing on what is not spoken, what cannot be said and the repercussions of silence, Zmeškal’s tale, told as a mosaic of events, exposes the larger, ongoing struggle of postcommunist Eastern Europe to come to terms with suffering when catharsis is denied.
Hamid Ismailov, Uzbek writer in exile and UK broadcaster, is an author of dozens of books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, all banned in Uzbekistan. Juxtaposing childhood traumas with the harshness of the adult world that causes them, his latest book The Dead Lake, long-listed for the 2015 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, tells a haunting Russian tale about environmental legacy of the Cold War.
Hamid Ismailov and Tomáš Zmeškal will read from their work and discuss literature and politics with writer and former Central Europe correspondent for Guardian and BBC, Misha Glenny.
THURSDAY 12 MAY, 7:00pm
Waterstones Piccadilly
203-206 Piccadilly, London W1J 9HD
Admission: £5
Bookings: +44 20 7851 2400, piccadilly@waterstones.com