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Constable, Murrin and Dalrymple among authors spotlighted at Bloomsbury Trade dinner
Harriet Constable, Alan Murrin and Kiley Reid were among the authors spotlighted at a dinner celebrating Bloomsbury’s 2024 publications. Held at the Lumley Library at the Royal College of Surgeons, the event also highlighted the work of Leo Vardiashvili, alongside Grace Blakeley, Yuan Yang, Josephine Quinn and William Dalrymple.
The event was attended by 80 people, among them literary media, festival directors, retailers and independent booksellers. Founder and chief executive Nigel Newton welcomed guests and thanked those in the room for supporting Bloomsbury’s 37 years of publishing, while head of Bloomsbury Trade Alexis Kirschbaum introduced the authors.
The evening was hosted by BBC journalist, broadcaster and presenter of Radio 4 Front Row Samira Ahmed who interviewed each author on the "revolutions and revelations" in their work. Bag with proofs were given out by Bloomsbury, showcasing the publisher’s new proof design.
On the fiction side, Constable discussed her debut novel The Instrumentalist, out on 22nd August 2024, which is set in 18th-century Venice and is inspired by the true story of the orphan and musical prodigy Anna Maria della Pietà. Meanwhile, Ahmed spoke to Murrin about his debut novel in progress, The Coast Road, which will be out on 9th May 2024 and was shortlisted for the Peters Fraser Dunlop Queer Fiction Prize, as well as being longlisted for the Caledonia New Novel Award 2022.
Reid, who is the Booker Prize-longlisted author of Such a Fun Age (Bloomsbury), discussed her new book Come and Get It, out on 30th January 2024. The book is described as a "story about money, indiscretion and bad behaviour".
Completing the fiction line-up was Vardiashvili, whose book Hard by a Great Forest, will be published by Bloomsbury on 18th January 2024. Seized by Bloomsbury in an overnight pre-empt, it explores "what it means to make peace with the past, and the long-lasting impact of war".
On the non-fiction side, Blakeley, a "star of the left" spoke about her political and economic book Vulture Capitalism: Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts, and the Death of Freedom, out on 14th March 2024. Meanwhile, Financial Times Europe-China correspondent Yang was interviewed about her debut Private Revolutions, out on 9th May 2024, which tells the story of China’s new social order through the lives of four young women.
History was also represented by the non-fiction authors spotlighted during the evening, with Quinn, a professor of ancient history at Oxford University, covering a few thousand years of it in her book How the World Made the West: A 4,000-year history, out on 29th February 2024. In addition, historian Dalrymple, author of The Company Quartet (Bloomsbury) and co-host of the popular podcast "Empire", talked about his book The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World, which will be released by Bloomsbury on 12th September 2024.
