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26 May – 5 Jun 2016, Hay-on-Wye
Thomas Keneally on Napoleon's Last Island
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Thomas Keneally on Napoleon's Last Island
Mon 30 May 2016 Hay Festival
In conversation with Gaby Wood

The Booker-winning Australian writer launches his new novel. On the island of St Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean, Napoleon spends his last years in exile. It is a hotbed of gossip and secret liaisons, where a blind eye is turned to relations between colonials and slaves. The disgraced emperor is subjected to vicious and petty treatment by his captors, but he forges an unexpected ally: a rebellious British girl, Betsy, who lives on the island with her family and becomes his unlikely friend.

The Booker-winning Australian writer launches his new novel. On the island of St Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean, Napoleon spends his last years in exile. It is a hotbed of gossip and secret liaisons, where a blind eye is turned to relations between colonials and slaves. The disgraced emperor is subjected to vicious and petty treatment by his captors, but he forges an unexpected ally: a rebellious British girl, Betsy, who lives on the island with her family and becomes his unlikely friend.