To celebrate the launch of the paperback of their latest novel The Silver Book join us for an evening of conversation with award winning writer, Olivia Laing.
It is September 1974. Two men meet by chance in Venice. One is a young English artist, in panicked flight from London. The other is Danilo Donati, the magician of Italian cinema, the designer responsible for realising the spectacular visions of Fellini and Pasolini. Donati is in Venice to produce sketches for Fellini’s Casanova. A young – and beautiful – apprentice is just what he needs.He sweeps Nicholas to Rome, into the looking-glass world of Cinecittà, the studio where Casanova’s Venice will be ingeniously assembled. Then in the spring, the lovers move together to the set of Salò, Pasolini’s horrifying fable of fascism.But Nicholas has a secret and in this world of constant illusion, his real nature passes unseen. Amidst the rising tensions of Italy’s ‘Years of Lead’, he acts as an accelerant, setting in motion a tragedy he didn’t intend.
‘Heartbreaking. I did not want this story to end’ Nigel Slater
Olivia Laing is a British writer, novelist and cultural critic. They are the author of five brilliant works of non-fiction—To the River, The Trip to Echo Spring, The Lonely City, Everybody, and The Garden Against Time—as well as an essay collection, Funny Weather, and two novels, Crudo and The Silver Book.