With Aliette de Bodard and Adrian Tchaikovsky.

This event will take place in the British Library. It will be simultaneously live streamed on the British Library platform as part of Fantasy Worlds: A Day of Talks online day pass. Tickets may be booked either to attend in person (physical) or to watch on our platform (online) either live or within 48 hours on catch up. Viewing links for the online version will be sent out shortly before the event. 

A fascinating conversation on building a world in fiction with two writers who are equally at ease with working in Fantasy and Science Fiction. Aliette de Bodard and Adrian Tchaikovsky talk to Matthew Sangster, guest curator of the British Library exhibition Fantasy: Realms of Imagination.

Part of Fantasy Worlds: A Day of Talks. For the full day programme and to book day in-person or online passes visit the day page.

Followed by a book signing. 

Aliette de Bodard writes speculative fiction: she has won three Nebula Awards, an Ignyte Award, a Locus Award and six British Science Fiction Association Awards. She is the author of A Fire Born of Exile, a sapphic Count of Monte Cristo in space (Gollancz/JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc., 2023), and Of Charms, Ghosts and Grievances (JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc, 2022 BSFA Award winner), a fantasy of manners and murders set in an alternate 19th Century Vietnamese court. She lives in Paris. 

Adrian Tchaikovsky was born in Lincolnshire before heading off to Reading to study psychology and zoology. He subsequently ended up in law and has worked as a legal executive in both Reading and Leeds, where he now lives. Married, he is a keen live role-player and occasional amateur actor and has trained in stage-fighting. He's the author of Children of Time, the winner of the 30th Anniversary Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the Sunday Times bestseller Shards of Earth. House of Open Wounds, the follow­ up novel to his triumphant fantasy novel City of Last Chances, is published on 7 December.

Matthew Sangster is Professor of Romantic Studies, Fantasy and Cultural History at Glasgow University and author of An Introduction to Fantasy (2023). He is guest curator of the British Library exhibition Fantasy: Realms of Imagination. 

Photo of Aliette de Bodard by Chloe Vollmer-Lo  

This event accompanies our exhibition Fantasy: Realms of Imagination, supported by:

If you’re attending in person, please arrive no later than 15 minutes before the start time of this event.

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