Olivia Laing is an internationally acclaimed writer. Their books include The Lonely City, Everybody and the Sunday Times number one bestseller, The Garden Against Time. Laing’s first novel, Crudo, won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. They’re a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Arts and in 2018 were awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize for non-fiction. Their books have been translated into twenty-one languages.
Laing has written catalogue essays on a range of contemporary artists, including David Hockney, Derek Jarman, Christian Marclay, Agnes Martin, Tilda Swinton, Wolfgang Tillmans and Andy Warhol. They’re the author of two essay collections: Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency and Painting Writing Texting, which charts a decade of collaboration with the artist Chantal Joffe.
The Silver Book, Laing’s second novel, is a queer love story and noirish thriller set in the dream factory of 1970s Italian cinema, where nothing is as it seems.
ABOUT HAY FESTIVAL BOOK CLUB
Timeless titles to offer you a break from the day to day. Can't decide what to read next? Follow your curiosity and join Hay Festival on a journey to imagine the world anew through great literature. Unconstrained by genre or form these are our monthly picks of great books worth reading (or re-reading) right now.
Throughout the month, we'll share interesting links and articles relating to our selection on Instagram channel (@hayfestivalbookclub) and invite you all to get involved with your questions and comments. Each selection will also be marked with a free online event.
If you'd like to recommend a book for consideration, get in touch via bookclub@hayfestival.org.
Happy reading!
Hay Festival Book Club – The Lonely City
– Free Online
A dazzling work of biography, memoir, and cultural criticism on the subject of loneliness, told through the lives of iconic artists.
When Olivia Laing moved to New York City in her mid-thirties, she found herself inhabiting loneliness on a daily basis. Increasingly fascinated by this most shameful of experiences, she began to explore the lonely city by way of art. Moving from Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks to Andy Warhol’s Time Capsules, from Henry Darger’s hoarding to David Wojnarowicz’s AIDS activism, Laing conducts an electrifying investigation into what it means to be alone, illuminating not only the causes of loneliness but also how it might be resisted and redeemed.
Humane, provocative, and moving, The Lonely City is a celebration of a strange and lovely state, adrift from the larger continent of human experience, but intrinsic to the very act of being alive.
Read it? Loved it? Let us know what you think over on our new Instagram page, @hayfestivalbookclub.
Further reading
‘Far right groups prey on it’: Olivia Laing on the weaponisation of loneliness, The Guardian
Olivia Laing: ‘The shame of loneliness is agonising’, The Observer
About the author
Supported by Unwin Charitable Trust
