Poets & Writers Theater

“If you look at the Greek myths, they’re always about unhappy families; Aristotle told us that politics starts in the family—I think that’s true.” Deborah Levy, whose most recent novel, Hot Milk (Hamish Hamilton, 2016), is shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize, talks about the elements of family in Hamlet that have always haunted her. This video is part of the Hay Festival: Talking About Shakespeare video series celebrating William Shakespeare’s four hundredth anniversary.

“I decided that she was a cross between Tina Turner and maybe Walter Benjamin or Baudelaire, perhaps a little bit of Angela Carter’s wonderful aerialist in Nights at the Circus...” Deborah Levy, whose novel Hot Milk (Bloomsbury, 2016) is shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize, reads from and talks about her inspiration and the characters in her dramatic verse book, An Amorous Discourse in the Suburbs of Hell (And Other Stories, 2014).