Sarah Waters talks to Hallie Rubenhold about what has inspired and motivated her extraordinary body of work.

This event is available to view as a recording until 13 June. Tickets can be purchased below.

Sarah Waters burst onto the literary scene with her stunning first novel Tipping the Velvet in 1998. The story of an oyster girl who falls in love with a captivating music hall male impersonator, it was adapted into a much-loved BBC series starring Keeley Hawes and Rachael Stirling.

Since then, Waters has produced one classic novel after another, from Fingersmith to The Night Watch to The Little Stranger and more besides. Each is an exquisitely vivid historical fiction, drawing from a wealth of literary influences and meticulous research, which delve into worlds too little explored in literature, in particular lesbian lives and hidden LGBTQ+ culture throughout history.

Speaking to Hallie Rubenhold, author of The Five and other hidden histories of women’s lives, Waters will discuss her extraordinary body of work, the research which goes into each book, the discoveries she has made in The London Library and what inspires and motivates her to tell the stories she so beautifully tells.

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Sarah Waters was born in Wales. She has won a Betty Trask Award, the Somerset Maugham Award and her books have been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize. Tipping the Velvet, Affinity, Fingersmith and The Night Watch have been adapted for television. Sarah Waters has been named Author of the Year four times: by the British Book Awards, the Booksellers' Association, Waterstone's Booksellers and the Stonewall Awards. She lives in London. She was awarded an OBE in 2019.

Hallie Rubenhold is a social historian whose expertise lies in revealing stories of previously unknown women and episodes in history. Her works of non-fiction include The Covent Garden Ladies, the No.1 bestselling Baillie Gifford Non-Fiction prize-winning The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper and Lady Worsley's Whim, dramatised by the BBC as 'The Scandalous Lady W'. Her novels Mistress of My Fate and The French Lesson are a feminist homage to the literary tropes of the Eighteenth Century.

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Your link for this recorded event will be sent to you via Eventbrite. If you do not receive it, please check your junk file or email litfest@londonlibrary.co.uk. Please note the event starts with a slide show listing the festival events which lasts approx 1 minute.

Transcription for this event will be available 1hr after the livestream ends.

Ticket holders will receive a 10% discount to buy all festival books from Hatchards until 13 June with their ticket.

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Tickets

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