Writers Madeleine Bunting and Annalena McAfee explore themes of island culture and identity and what makes a true home in a discussion about their latest works of travel writing and fiction.

Bunting takes a journey through the Hebrides in Love of Country, a story of how this chain of islands helped to shape Britain and how the rest of the nation shaped its will on the islands and their inhabitants. It is a story rich in Gaelic tradition and its ties to a landscape. Bunting is a former Guardian journalist and author of a number of books including Portico Prize-winning The Plot: A Biography of an English Acre.

McAfee’s Hame is a novel that centres around the main character’s return from New York to a remote Scottish island with her young daughter following the breakdown of a relationship. She has been commissioned to write a biography of an island poet with an international reputation. The novel explores themes of identity, love and the quest for home. McAfee founded Guardian Review and is a former arts and literary editor of the Financial Times. She is also author of another novel, The Spoiler.

Discussions will be chaired by Boyd Tonkin, literary critic for the Financial Times, Economist and Spectator,and former literary editor of The Independent.