Emma Donoghue Discusses The Paris Express at the Playhouse Cinema

Hamilton's Readers and Writers Festival was launched in 2004. Since then, gritLIT has brought over 400 of the best writers in Canada to Hamilton for readings, writing workshops, panel discussions, interviews and events for youth and children.

Hamilton Literary Festival Association

gritLIT is pleased to welcome Emma Donoghue to the Playhouse Cinema to discuss her newest book, The Paris Express.

Playhouse Cinema

gritLIT is pleased to welcome Emma Donoghue to the Playhouse Cinema to discuss her newest book, The Paris Express.Doors at 6:30, conversation 7-8 PM, with book signing to follow. <h3>About the Book</h3>From Emma Donoghue, author of Room, The Wonder and Pull of the Stars comes a taut and suspenseful historical novel that reimagines an 1895 French railway disaster, an event famously documented in dramatic photographsSet over a single day, as the morning train travels from the Normandy coast to Paris, men, women and children take their seats in the passenger cars, which are divided by wealth and status. Among the passengers is an anarchist intent on destruction, a young boy travelling alone, a pregnant woman fleeing her home village for the anonymity of the big city, a medical student who suspects a girl may have a fatal disease, and the railway men, devoted to the train, to the company and to each other.Based on an 1895 disaster that went down in history when it was captured in a series of surreal, extraordinary photographs, The Paris Express is a thrilling ride and a literary masterpiece that captures the politics, fears and chaos of the end of the nineteenth century. <h3>Critical Praise</h3>“Donoghue's talents are at such glorious heights in this novel, the reader feels as though they are on the titular train, bustling next to strangers, staring out the window, and hurtling towards Paris. And it's near impossible to put the book down until it reaches its final destination. Donoghue beautifully crafts a world that captures the vitality and smells and sights of Victorian France, while investigating the different classes who inhabited the same spaces, but lived worlds apart....Donoghue's train is a microcosm of Paris of the times, ready to explode.” — Heather O’Neill, author of The Capital of Dreams“Captivating! Emma Donoghue writes in rich, luxuriant detail, yet the story moves at a exhilarating clip. The Paris Express brings big questions about human interconnectedness into an edge-of-your-seat historical thriller that I couldn’t put down.” — Shelby Van Pelt, author of Remarkably Bright Creatures"Clever, ambitious, and richly researched. A slice of 1890s Paris that makes us see that our modern problems aren’t so modern after all! The Paris Express is a smartly structured novel that ratchets up the pace until it's hurtling along as fast as the doomed train itself." — Alice Winn, author of In Memoriam“Donoghue establishes an intricate web of human relationships as the narrative speeds toward an unexpected yet plausible finale….Readers ought to jump on board.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) <h3>About the Author</h3>Born in Dublin in 1969, EMMA DONOGHUE is a novelist, screenwriter and playwright. Room sold more than two million copies and won the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Canada and the Caribbean), as well as being shortlisted for the Man Booker and Orange Prizes. Donoghue scripted the Canadian-Irish film adaptation, which was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The Wonder was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and Donoghue co-wrote the 2022 screen adaptation for Netflix. The Pull of the Stars was a finalist for the Trillium Book Award and was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Donoghue's fiction ranges from the contemporary (Stir-Fry, Hood, Landing, Touchy Subjects, Akin) to the historical (Haven, Slammerkin, The Sealed Letter, Astray, Frog Music) and includes two books for young readers, The Lotterys Plus One and The Lotterys More or Less.