Eleanor Catton: Birnam Wood
Booker Prize winning author Eleanor Catton joins the Toronto International Festival of Authors and Toronto Public Library (TPL) live and in-person on stage in the Appel Salon to discuss her new novel, Birnam Wood.
A gripping psychological thriller centred around an unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic guerrilla gardening collective, Birnam Wood is Shakespearean in its drama, Austenian in its wit, and, like both influences, fascinated by what makes us who we are. In conversation with novelist Claire Cameron.
A Q&A session and book signing to follow. Books available for purchase.
This event is part of the TPL's signature Salon Series, where they host local and international authors, artists and thinkers in conversation about their new books and big ideas.
Date: Monday, March 6 at 7–8pm
Where: The Bram and Bluma Appel Salon, Toronto Reference Library (789 Yonge Street)
Cost: Free
The talk starts at 7 pm, but doors open at 6 pm. Come early so you can chat with your fellow literature lovers. Tickets are only guaranteed until 15 minutes before the show starts, at which point spots will be opened to the rush line. The cash bar will be stocked with a selection of beer and wine, as well as sandwiches and snacks.
This event will not be live streamed but the replay will be made available to watch on TPL’s YouTube channel.
Birnam Wood is on the move . . . A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass on New Zealand’s South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike and leaving a sizable farm abandoned. The disaster has created an opportunity for Birnam Wood, an unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic guerrilla gardening collective that plants crops wherever no one will notice. When an enigmatic American billionaire catches Mira, Birnam Wood’s founder, on his property, he makes an offer that would set the group up for the long term. But can they trust him? And, as their ideals and ideologies are tested, can they trust one another?
Birnam Wood is an electrifying eco-thriller grounded in a provocative and sly exploration of some of the most pressing issues of our times.
Eleanor Catton is the author of the international bestseller The Luminaries, winner of the Man Booker Prize and a Governor General’s Literary Award. Her debut novel, The Rehearsal, won the Betty Trask Award, was short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award and the Dylan Thomas Prize, and was long-listed for the Orange Prize. She is also the screenwriter of Emma, a 2020 feature film adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel. Born in Canada and raised in New Zealand, she now lives in Cambridge, England. Photo credit: Murdo MacLeod.
Claire Cameron’s The Last Neanderthal, published in April 2017, is a bestseller in Canada and a finalist for the 2017 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. Her second novel, The Bear, was long-listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and is a number one bestseller in Canada. It won the Northern Lit Award from the Ontario Library Service, which Cameron’s first novel, The Line Painter, also won. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Globe and Mail and more. She lives in Toronto. Photo credit: David Kerr.
