The One Who Wrote Destiny – Henley Literary Festival

Will Self’s pronouncement that “The novel is doomed to become a marginal cultural form” caused controversy. Here, the writers of three acclaimed novels defend the form with Daniel Hahn, former Society of Authors chair. Nikesh Shukla’s The One Who Wrote Destiny tells the story of a young man who moves from sunny Kenya to the drizzly northern town of Keighley; Rachel Edwards’ Darling has been described as the first Brexit thriller and tells of the clash between a white teenage girl and her new black stepmother; and in Learning to Die, Thomas Maloney follows five characters as they fall under a mortal shadow. Novels doomed? Hardly.