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Novelist Jill Dawson talks to fellow writer and the festival’s academic director, Professor Jem Poster, about her new work, The Tell-Tale Heart. Through the story of 50-year-old professor, Patrick, who receives a new heart from a teenager killed in a motorcycle accident, she explores fundamental questions about identity, the symbolic meaning of the heart and the possibility of change. Patrick, a drinker and womaniser, recovers well from his transplant but has a feeling the his ‘old life won’t have him’. He becomes intensely intrigued about the heart donor and what shaped him.

The Tell-Tale Heart is Dawson’s eighth novel. Fred and Edie was shortlisted for the Whitbread and Orange awards. She is director of Gold Dust, a mentoring scheme for writers.