‘Too often truth ain’t in what’s right […] sometimes it’s in who speaks it. Or writes it.’ In C Pam Zhang’s Booker Prize longlisted How Much of These Hills is Gold, a family set out for the American West in search of their fortune. Told largely through the perspectives of 11- and 12-year-old Lucy and Sam, C Pam reinserts Chinese, Indigenous and LGBTQ+ people back into a narrative from which they’ve been erased. In Memorial, Bryan’s debut novel, couple Benson and Mike are trying to work out whether or not they’re still in love. When Mike discovers his estranged father is dying, he flies to Japan to see him just as his mother, Mitsuko, arrives in the USA and moves in with Benson. Two beautifully told stories about home, family and belonging. C Pam Zhang’s novel was chosen by Barack Obama as one of his books of 2020 and is currently being adapted for television. Bryan’s short story collection Lot won the 2020 International Dylan Thomas Prize. C Pam and Bryan will be in conversation with Okechukwu Nzelu, author of The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney.

Presented by Manchester Literature Festival in partnership with Durham Book Festival and Ilkley Literature Festival.