Join award winning author Diana Evans to celebrate the publication of her new novel, A House for Alice.

Alice was thinking about her own next world and her own castle, which was not in Kingsbury or in Kilburn. It was far away from here, out in the fields near the edge of Benin City, a little house, long in the dreaming, which her relatives had been building for her for when it was time to go home to Nigeria. One day it would be time to go home.

After fifty years in the wilderness of London, Alice wants to live out her days in the land of her birth. Her children are not so sure, and in the wake of their father’s death, the imagined stability of the family begins to buckle.

Youngest daughter Melissa is forging a new life but has never let go of a love she lost. Michael too remains haunted by the failed perfection of the past, even within the sturdy walls of his marriage to the sparkling Nicole. As Alice’s final decision draws closer, all that is hidden between Melissa and her sisters, Michael and Nicole, rises to the surface…

Diana is the author of 26a, The Wonder and Ordinary People. She has received nominations for the Whitbread first Novel, the Guardian first book and was the inaugural winner of the Orange Award for New Writers. Her newest novel A House For Alice is set against the shadows of Grenfell and a country in turmoil, this lyrical book encourages us to confront fundamental questions. How should we raise our children? How to do it right by our parents? And how, in the midst of everything, might we satisfy ourselves? In conversation for this unique special event Diana will explore the process of writing this new novel and the importance of finding a home. Be sure not to miss it.

A brilliant craftswoman. Jackie Kay

Diana Evans writes exquisitely beautifully. Bernadine Evaristo