THE SILVER BOOK WITH OLIVIA LAING

The Silver Book opens in September 1974, as two men meet by chance in Venice. One is Nicholas, a young and beautiful English artist fleeing London, and the other is iconic cinema designer Danilo Donati. He makes Nicholas his apprentice, and his lover, and brings him into the looking-glass world of the Cinecittà film studio in Rome, and then to the set of Salò, Pasolini’s horrifying fable of fascism. But Nicholas has a secret, and in Donati's realm of constant illusion, his real nature passes unseen. Amidst the rising tensions of Italy’s ‘Years of Lead’, Nicholas acts as a catalyst, setting in motion a tragedy he didn’t intend...

Internationally acclaimed writer and critic Olivia Laing is the author of eight books, including non-fiction bestsellers The Garden Against Time, The Lonely City and Everybody, and their lauded first novel, Crudo. They are a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Arts. As well as signing copies of the brand new paperback edition of The Silver Book, Olivia will be talking about the novel in conversation with Margate's own Robert Diament, Director of the Carl Freedman Gallery and Counter Editions, co-host of the Talk Art podcast and co-author of the wonderful Art School (in a Book).