Manchester Literature Festival is delighted to present a rare UK event with Mexican writer Valeria Luiselli.

Described as ‘a writer of formidable talent, destined to be an important voice in Latin American letters’ by Daniel Alarcon, Valeria is the author of the novels Faces in the Crowd and The Story of My Teeth; the essay collection Sidewalks; and Tell Me How It Ends, an essay about the situation faced by children arriving at the US-Mexico border without papers. Critically acclaimed by the New York Times and NPR and winner of an American Book Award, the latter was called ‘the first must-read book of the Trump era’ by the Texas Observer.

Valeria’s forthcoming novel Lost Children Archive is her first written in English. It’s also her most powerful, timely and deeply lyrical novel to date, skilfully intertwining two stories that explore home, exile, memory, childhood, identity, history and belonging. The first story focuses on a family that set out on a road trip from New York to Apacheria, the region the Apaches once called home. The second story focuses on some of the children travelling to the US from Central America and Mexico, risking their lives crossing rivers and deserts with a coyote, and always without their parents, passports or maps.

Valeria will be in conversation with Kamila Shamsie, MLF Patron and author of Home Fire, winner of 2018 Women’s Prize for Fiction. Presented in partnership with Creative Manchester and the Centre for New Writing.

Doors open 6.30pm, event starts 7pm.