Sun, Nov 1  •  4pm

The Dark Side of Devotion

Petra Hůlová and Lee Heejoo

Hear a thought-provoking conversation from these two international authors

Fiction
Conversation
Pass Required
Passes available
The Dark Side of Devotion
The Dark Side of Devotion

Sun, Nov 1  •  4pm

The Dark Side of Devotion

Petra Hůlová and Lee Heejoo

Hear a thought-provoking conversation from these two international authors

Conversation
Fiction
Pass Required
Passes available

About

Acclaimed Czech author Petra Hůlová and Korean novelist Lee Heejoo bring two unsettling perspectives to desire, devotion and power. In Hůlová’s The Long Version, a feminist writer in her fifties revisits a complicated relationship from her youth as her daughter challenges her understanding of consent, feminism and the shifting meanings of the past. In Lee’s Holy Boy, translated by Joheun Lee, four devoted K-pop fans take their obsession to a terrifying extreme, kidnapping their idol and watching their fantasy of perfect love unravel into paranoia and violence. Across radically different worlds, Hůlová and Lee examine how desire can distort perception, how devotion can become possession, and how the pursuit of agency can produce unexpected, troubling consequences.

Can a woman wake up one day and say “#MeToo” 20 years after the fact? Or is “#MeToo” a right reserved for the younger generation?  In her early fifties, Czech author Sylvie Novak looks back on her successful career.

Published by World Editions

Four obsessed women kidnap a K-Pop idol with unexpected and devastating results in this chilling, thought-provoking literary thriller that blends the dark impulsions of Butter with the ratcheting tension of Stephen King’s Misery. Four wildly different women are consumed by Yosep, a dreamy twenty-one-year-old K-pop idol known as “the boy.” Ahna, a woman in her forties, first sought the company of younger men to quell the loneliness she experienced accompanying her husband on his trips abroad. When an affluent friend introduces her to the boy and she sees him on television, Ahna joins his cultish fandom.

Published by HarperCollins Canada

Petra Hůlová is a fiction writer and the recipient of several literary awards, including Czechia’s highest literary recognitions—the Magnesia Litera, the Josef Škvorecký Award and the Jiří Orten Award. The English translation of her debut novel All This Belongs to Me, translated by Alex Zucker, won the ALTA National Translation Award.

Lee Heejoo was born in Seoul in 1992. She started her writing career winning the Munhakdongne University Novel Award with her debut Phantom Limb Pain in 2016 and received the Munhakdongne Young Author Award and the Lee Hyo-seok Literary Award Grand Prize in 2025.

Dates & Times

Sun, Nov 1
4:00pm
5:00pm
A book signing will follow this event

Tickets

Full Festival Pass
SOLD OUT
Regular $159
Under 30 $79
5-Day Festival Pass
Includes 5-day festival events. Excludes Masterclasses.
Regular $159
Under 30 $79
2-Day Weekend
Includes all Victoria University events. Excludes Winter Garden Theatre events and Masterclasses.
Regular $69
Under 30 $39
1-Day Sunday
Includes all Sunday events.
Excludes Masterclasses.
Regular $39
Under 30 $29
Pass Information
5-Day Festival Pass includes Barbara Kingsolver and East West Street: A Song of Good & Evil .
2-Day Weekend and 1-Day Passes do not include Winter Garden Theatre events.

Venue

Emmanuel College Chapel, Room 319

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