Join us for discussion with award winning short-story writer and essayist Heather O’Neill as she discusses her newest release The Capital of Dreams.
Award winning author, Catherine Leroux will be moderating and interviewing for the discussion.
Presented in partnership with Words Worth Books in celebration of 40 years.
About The Capital of Dreams
Sofia Bottom lives in a small country that Europe has forgotten. But inside its borders, the old myths of trees that come alive and faeries who live among their roots have given way to an explosion of the arts and the consolations of philosophy. No one, from the clarinettists to the cabaret singers, is as revered in the arts as Sofia's brilliant mother, the writer Clara Bottom. How can 14 year old Sofia, with a tin ear and an enduring love of the old myths, ever hope to win her mother's love?
When the country's greatest enemy invades, and the Capital is under threat, at last Clara turns to her daughter. Sofia must smuggle her new manuscript to safety on the last train evacuating children from the city. But the train draws to a suspicious halt in the middle of a forest, and Sofia must run for her life, losing her mother's most prized possession. Now frightened and alone in a country at war, Sofia must find a way to reclaim what she has lost. On an epic journey through woods and razed towns, colliding with soldiers, survivors and other lost children, Sofia must make the choice between kindness and survival.
In a stunning dark fairytale of a novel, Heather O'Neill reveals once again that she is a master of language that is as delicious as cake and serious as a gunshot.
About Heather O’Neill
HEATHER O'NEILL is a novelist, short-story writer and essayist. Her most recent novel, When We Lost Our Heads was a #1 national bestseller and was a finalist for the Grand Prix du Livre de Montréal. Her previous works include The Lonely Hearts Hotel, which won the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction and CBC's Canada Reads, as well as Lullabies for Little Criminals, The Girl Who Was Saturday Night and Daydreams of Angels, which were shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction, the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Scotiabank Giller Prize two years in a row. She has won CBC's Canada Reads and the Danuta Gleed Award. Born and raised in Montreal, O'Neill lives there today.
About Catherine Leroux
Catherine Leroux is Québec novelist, translator and editor born in 1979. Her debut novel La marche en forêt was published in 2011. Two years later, Le mur mitoyen won the France-Quebec Prize and its English version, The Party Wall, was nominated for the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize. The Future (L’avenir in French), won the 2024 edition of Canada Reads. Her latest novel, Peuple de verre, is a speculative fiction about the housing crisis. As a translator, Catherine has brought the works of Sean Michaels, Andrew Kaufman and (soon) Sarah Bernstein into French, and won the 2019 Governor general award for her translation of Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien. She lives in Montreal with her two children.
Programmer: Nancy
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