Special event with Colum McCann

Join us from 7pm on 8 May at Newcastle Library for a wide-ranging conversation with critically acclaimed Irish novelist Colum McCann, author of American Mother and Apeirogon, and the new novel Twist – a darkly epic novel about connection, disconnection and destruction.

Festival director Rosemarie Milsom will host the event, which is presented in partnership with Melbourne Writers Festival and Newcastle Library. Tickets are $35.

Colum McCann was born and raised in Dublin. He has been the recipient of many international awards, and his work has been published in more than 40 languages. He is the author of novels Let the Great World Spin and Apeirogon, which became an immediate New York Times best-seller and won several major international awards. His first major non-fiction book, American Mother, was published in 2024 and centres on Diane Foley, the mother of photojournalist James Foley who was murdered by ISIS.

McCann’s new book Twist is as taut and propulsive as a thriller, and a timeless exploration of narrative and truth. It is simply the work of a master storyteller at the height of his powers.

At its centre is Anthony Fennell, a writer, who has travelled to Cape Town with a simple aim: to find and board the Georges Lecointe, a cable repair vessel captained by the mysterious, charismatic Chief of Mission John Conway. As the boat embarks along the west coast of Africa, Fennell settles into the routines and rituals of life out at sea. But as the mission falters, it becomes clear that Conway is in crisis: and that a terrible, violent tragedy is unfolding in the life he has left behind on land.

When Conway disappears, Fennel must set out to find him. His discoveries will bring him face to face with the darkest contradictions of the human heart – and to confront the possibility that the ties that bind us might be better off broken.

‘A powerfully realist novel of men at sea … It speaks of the brokenness of our time, the successful and unsuccessful attempts at repairs, and the vulnerability of our world’

SALMAN RUSHDIE

‘One of our greatest storytellers’

ELIF SHAFAK