We’re delighted to welcome Fatima Bhutto, to discuss her new memoir, ‘The Hour of the Wolf’. This is a brave and intimate book, in which Bhutto recounts the story of her extrication from a toxic relationship, a story that crosses continents and travels into myth, literature, astronomy and art. Bhutto weaves wolf ethnography with her own suppressed maternal instinct and examines the power of found families through the prism of humanity’s connection to nature.

Fatima Bhutto is the author of two novels, The Runaways and The Shadow of the Crescent and the non-fiction New Kings of the World and Songs of Blood and Stone which deals with her father’s murder and the Bhutto family’s history in Pakistani politics. Bhutto’s journalism and essays have appeared in the New Statesman, New York Times, The Guardian and elsewhere.

Fatima will be in conversation with Sana Goyal, the Editor and Publishing Director of Wasafiri. Her reviews have appeared in The Guardian, FT, TLS and elsewhere. She was a judge for the 2025 International Booker Prize.

We hope you can join us – drinks will be served from 6.30, with the interview running from approx. 7-8pm, followed by time for book signing and browsing. Photo credit: M.P.Giarre

A warm welcome to author Nidhi Arora who will be in store to discuss her debut novel The Lights of Shantinagar, which follows Sumi, and aspiring quantum physicist, as she moves into her new husband’s family home. In this beguilingly tranquil middle-class town, not all is as it seems…

Nidhi is the Fiction Editor of the literary journal Oyster River Pages. Her short stories have been featured in journals and anthologies including Best New Singaporean Short Stories, Sonder and The Aleph Review. The Lights of Shantinagar was the winner of Unbound Firsts 2025, a competition for debut writers of colour.

Nidhi was born  and raised in India, spent a decade in Singapore, and now calls London home – though she far prefers to inhabit the world of fiction.

Nidhi will be interviewed by Will Atkinson, director of Wilton Square Books, and the conversation will cover Nidhi’s work and her journey to publication – a fascinating subject in the current climate.

Saleem Haddad, author of bestselling cult novel Guapa, will be joining us on the publication day of his new novel, Floodlines, a ‘sweeping multi-generational novel of fractured bonds’. An ambitious novel inspired by Haddad’s family history, Floodlines is already earning praise from writers such as Tareq Beconi and Ibtisam Azem and promises to become a contemporary Iraqi classic.

Saleem Haddad was born in Kuwait City to a Lebanese-Palestinian father and an Iraqi-German mother. He has worked as an aid worker and has advised on humanitarian and peacebuilding issues throughout West Asia and North Africa.

We’re delighted to host the launch of Venice Requiem by Khalid Lyamlahy, in conversation with Lisa St Aubin de Téran.

Based on the true story of Pateh Sabally, a 22-year-old Gambian refugee who died in Venice’s Grand Canal in 2017, the novel’s narrator aims to understand the sequence of events leading up to his death. Through a dialogue with the writings of various authors who have lived in, or written about, Venice, this novel explores the potential of literature to rescue humanity.

Rabat-born Khalid Lyamlahy teaches North African Literature at the University of Chicago. Venice Requiem is his first translation in English.

Lisa St Aubin de Téran is the prize-winning author of 20 books, including novels, short stories and non-fiction. She currently divides her time between London and Mozambique, where she runs the Téran Foundation.

Venice Requiem has been translated by Ros Schwartz. This event is supported by the French Institute in the UK.

Xiaolu Guo is a prolific writer and filmmaker whose work embraces fiction, memoir, and documentary. Xiaolu talks to author Paul French (Midnight in Peking, Her Lotus Year)about her work and her journey as a writer – from China to England, from Chinese to English and from memoir to novels as well as new interests reflected in her recent books My Battle of Hastings, and a bold retelling of Moby Dick, Call me Ishmaelle, both of which of ultimately hark back to her Chinese roots.

As the world grows ever noisier, Alice Vincent returns with a journey into sound that will ring true for many women.

You may know Alice Vincent’s name from her acclaimed books ‘Why Women Grow’ and ‘Rootbound: Rewilding a Life’, but her previous incarnation as a music journalist – and urban dweller – had led her to the point of sensory overload. The sound of her baby’s heartbeat marked the start of a personal quest to rediscover sound as something alive and vital and restorative. The result is ‘Hark’, a profound and beautiful book which is a firm Veranda favourite.

We are thrilled to welcome Alice to the shop on the 11th November for a conversation about sound, silence, music and matrescence. Please join us!

6.30 – drinks

7-8 Conversation and Q&A

8-8.30 Book signing