Claire-Louise Bennett

On September 19 literary icon Claire-Louise Bennett will visit Ghent. The British writer has conquered awards and bookstores in recent years with her sparkling novels Checkout 19 and Pond harten, and now she will exclusively present her new book at VIERNULVIER: Big kiss, bye-bye!

In Big kiss, bye-bye, Bennett explores the traces that love leaves behind.

The protagonist has moved from the city to the distant countryside. There, uprooted and floating between two worlds, she thinks of everyone she has left behind. Especially her older lover Xavier, who – he says – knows her better than she knows herself. She still loves him, but the desire has faded. An unexpected letter stirs up even more memories of past loves. There was happiness and unhappiness, liberation and constraint.

The traces they left in her life – coffee stains, voicemails, flower bouquets – form a cabinet of curiosities through which she moves, while circling ever closer to the core of what it means to connect. Why do we want to touch the other, who is allowed to touch us? And how do we let go again?

Author Bregje Hofstede will have a conversation with Claire-Louise Bennett. The Dutch translation of Bennett's novel will be released a few weeks before the original English edition – it promises to be a unique encounter. Until then, bye-bye!