The Forum – Psychoanalysts in Dialogue with Sophie Ward

Organised by:

British Psychoanalytical Society (incorporating the Institute of Psychoanalysis)

Description

Valli Kohon will be in dialogue with Sophie Ward

Chaired by Anna Streeruwitz

There will be a small drinks reception from 8:00pm – 9:00pm

Sophie Ward is an actor and writer. Her debut novel, Love and Other Thought Experiments, was long-listed for the Booker Prize 2020, the Desmond Eliot Prize 2020 and the Polari Prize 2021. She has a degree in Philosophy and Literature and her PhD at Goldsmiths focused on the use of narrative in philosophy of mind.

A psychologically gripping and provocative new novel about childhood, secrets and trust, by the Booker Prize-nominated author of Love and Other Thought Experiments.

Isobel lives an isolated life in North London, working at a nearby library. She feels safe if she keeps to her routines and doesn’t let her thoughts stray too far into the past. But a newspaper photograph of a missing local schoolgirl and a letter from her old teacher are all it takes for her ordinary, careful armour to become overwhelmed and the trauma of what happened when she was a pupil at The Schoolhouse to return.

The Schoolhouse was different – one of the 1970s experimental schools that were a reaction to the formal methods of the past. The usual rules did not apply, and life there was a dark interplay of freedom and adventure, violence and fear. Only her teenage diary recorded what happened, but the truth is coming for her and everything she has tried to protect is put at risk.

Set between the past and the present, The Schoolhouse is a masterful and gripping novel about childhood, secrets and trust.

Book tickets