Sarah Moss: Ripeness

Saturday 24 May, 2:30pm, QUAD, DE1 3AS

Sarah will be in conversation with Professor Keith McLay, Chair of Derby Book Festival and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Derby

Sarah Moss is consistently cited as one of the UK’s finest contemporary writers and we are delighted to welcome her back following her successful event in 2023 with The Fell. Her latest, eagerly anticipated novel, Ripeness, takes us from 1960s Italy to contemporary Ireland and is a story of love and the search for belonging.

On the brink of adulthood, Edith travels to rural Italy to help her sister, ballet dancer Lydia, through the final weeks of her pregnancy, help at the birth and then make a phone call which will seal this baby’s fate - and his mother’s.

Decades later, happily divorced and newly energised, Edith’s life is about to be upended when her best friend Maebh receives a disturbing call from a man claiming to be her brother. Maebh must decide if she will meet him and Edith finds herself plunged back into her own past and her memories of a lost love.