Coffee and Cake with Colin Thubron

Colin Thubron’s masterful work has earned him accolades that span decades and disciplines, from his classic travel literature, including the winner of the Hawthornden Prize and the Thomas Cook Travel Award: Behind the Wall , to his excellent novels such as A Cruel Madness, winner of the PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award.

Night of Fire is Thubron’s first novel for 15 years; a searing, poetic masterpiece of memory. It weaves the passions and obsessions of a house on fire, from the hallucinating drug addict in the basement to the landlord training his telescope on the night skies. The tenants’ stories range from an African refugee camp, a Greek Orthodox sanctuary and the cremation-grounds of India: memories that criss-cross and mutate in a novel of lingering beauty and mystery.

“The novel impresses with its literary craft and ambition”, Evening Standard.