Based on the intimate diaries Will Self’s mother kept for over forty years, Elaine is a writer’s attempt to reach the almost unimaginable realm of a parent’s interior life prior to his own existence. Perhaps the first work of auto-oedipal fiction, Elaine shows Self working in an exciting new dimension, utilizing his stylistic talents to tremendous effect. Scathing and brilliant.

THIS EVENT WILL BE A LIVE LINK-UP WITH WILL SELF AT HIS HOME IN SOUTH LONDON. Pre-signed copies of Elaine will be available at the festival bookstore at the event.

Will Self is the author of many novels and books of non-fiction, including Great Apes; The Book of Dave; How the Dead Live, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel of the Year 2002; The Butt, winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction 2008; and Umbrella, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2012.