Brilliant Fiction
About our events
“Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own…” says the magnificent Ann Patchett. Join her, and a constellation of fiction stars, as we bring you brilliant, visionary, and inventive storytellers spinning tales of history, fantasy, romance, and more. Featuring Scottish greats and visiting writers from over 40 countries, encompassing household names and first-time novelists, we invite you to see the world anew this August.
From Scotland, award-winning novelist Ali Smith shares her exuberant new anti-war novel, Glyph; Maggie O’Farrell arrives fresh from Hamnet’s incredible awards streak with her new title, Land; Fern Brady joins us with a special preview of her debut novel, High Energy Unpleasant; and Jenni Fagan’s hugely anticipated The Delusions imagines an afterlife run by cosmic (and comic) bureaucracy.
Evelyn Clarke (AKA Cat Clarke and V E Schwab’s writing partnership) discuss sinister thriller The Ending Writes Itself, Louise Welsh returns to Glasgow’s seedy underbelly in The Cut Up, and Tom Newlands’ Something Like Happiness confirms him as a name to watch after Scottish Book of the Year-winning Only Here, Only Now.
From further afield, Daniyal Mueenuddin’s debut novel, This is Where the Serpent Lives, transplants the great Russian novel to modern Pakistan; Colm Tóibín regales us with The News from Dublin in his new collection of short stories; Claudia Rankine explores truth, art, and fiction in Triage; and Matt Haig boards The Midnight Train towards the past mistakes we’d like to erase.
Ben Lerner explores the failures of technology and memory in Transcription; Candice Carty-Williams’ vibrant Queenie returns 10 years older and no wiser in Queenie is Working on It; and million-copy-selling fantasy author Samantha Shannon unpacks her newest title, Among the Burning Flowers.
Sales of fiction in translation in the UK are booming: celebrate with literary royalty from around the world, including two of Japan’s bestselling sensations – Mieko Kawakami (Sisters in Yellow) and Nao-Cola Yamazaki (Don’t Laugh At Other People’s Sex Lives); Spain’s Javier Cercas; cult French author Édouard Louis; and a trio of 2026 International Booker Prize nominees: Yáng Shuāng-zi with Taiwan Travelogue, Germany’s Daniel Kehlmann with The Director, and Shida Bazyar with The Nights are Quiet in Tehran.
List of Events
Caden Armstrong, Nadine Aisha Jassat & Ella Risbridger: Love on the Brain
Slow burns and bodice rippers, unrequited yearning and enemies-to-lovers: romantic fiction contains whole universes of passion, pain, and…
Jeremy Vine: Turn the Dial on Death
We’re in Sidmouth on Devon’s south coast, usually the picture of seaside bliss... until a local doctor is found dead in the woods. So…
Ana Kinsella & Lizzy Stewart: Feelings and Faultlines
In Frida Slattery as Herself – Ana Kinsella’s absorbing love letter to artistic expression – an actor and director walk a messy line…
Matt Haig: The Midnight Train
Few authors take residence inside a reader’s heart like Matt Haig, who follows up his multi-million copy bestseller The Midnight Library…
Fiona Mozley: Awake, Awake
When Mary begins remembering things that can’t be real, she must reconnect with friends long since scattered to reconstruct the truth. Set…
Missouri Williams: The Vivisectors
Missouri Williams’ work holds up a mirror to the many contradictions that make up our humanity. She captured the world’s attention with…
Mieko Kawakami: Sisters in Yellow
Superstar Mieko Kawakami is one of the driving forces behind the explosion of popularity of Japanese fiction in the UK; the seven top…
Daniyal Mueenuddin: This is Where the Serpent Lives
An epic saga set in modern Pakistan, This Is Where the Serpent Lives is Daniyal Mueenuddin’s much-anticipated debut novel, following his…
Colm Tóibín: The News from Dublin
Colm Tóibín – author of 12 books including the multi-award-winning Brooklyn – is one of modern Ireland’s greatest writers. He talks with…
Fern Brady: High Energy Unpleasant
With her bestselling memoir, Strong Female Character, comedian Fern Brady proved her caustic wit could handle the heaviest themes on the…
Angela Flournoy & Agnes Lidbeck: Love and Politics
We’ve all felt relationships changing shape as they’re buffeted by external winds, but none have written about this quite as beautifully as…
Maria Stepanova: The Disappearing Act
Severed from her homeland and language, the exiled writer at the centre of The Disappearing Act has a lot in common with her creator, Maria…
Meg Mason: Sophie, Standing There
Meg Mason wrang our hearts with her wit and compassion in Sorrow and Bliss. Now she follows that Women’s Prize-shortlisted success with her…
Mike Gayle: On We Go
Since the late 90s, Mike Gayle has written ordinary characters dealing with everyday chaos with humour, romance, and grace: from life after…
Ali Smith: Glyph
For Scotland's own beloved Ali Smith, words are never neutral – they are alive, exuberant, political. Glyph, a dazzling companion to last…
Sally Magnusson: The Shapeshifter’s Daughter
As the host of Reporting Scotland, Sally Magnusson became known as one of our most trusted journalists – now she’s also a beloved (and…
Sarah Wang: New Skin
In her incisive debut, New Skin, Sarah Wang mixes a heady cocktail of unattainable beauty standards, assimilation, and the poison of the…
Isabel Waidner: Seeing Double
Things aren’t always what they seem in Isabel Waidner’s surreal, inventive work. As If, Waidner’s latest novel, following the Goldsmiths…
Valeria Luiselli & Sara Torres: The Trouble with Beginnings
A mother and daughter on the road in Sicily. A young woman in Barcelona caught between a dying mother and a new lover. In Valeria…
Joelle Taylor: Maryville
Joelle Taylor, the luminous T. S. Eliot and Polari Prize-winning author of C+nto & Othered Poems, brings her raucous storytelling back…
Helle Helle & Vigdis Hjorth: Ordinary Miracles
Two heavyweights of Nordic fiction meet on stage for a sparky conversation with Sophie Gee about daily life as rich material. Helle Helle…
Karan Mahajan & Omar Musa: Exploring Legacies
Karan Mahajan and Omar Musa have produced poetry, personal essays, and hip-hop albums between them, but today their fiercely creative minds…
Hannah Lillith Assadi: Paradiso 17
Hannah Lillith Assadi began writing the 2026 Women’s Prize-longlisted Paradiso 17 – a sweeping tale of an exiled Palestinian searching for…