Two writers explore the challenges of writing historical fiction from different national perspectives, including the excitement and difficulties in imagining the battles of the past.

Abdul Aziz al Mahmoud is a Qatari writer who says his novel, The Corsair, sets out to show that The Gulf was not a quiet isolated place before the discovery of oil. It tells the story of legendary 19th-century pirate, or corsair, Erhama bin Jaber, who controlled the trade routes at a time when the British were fighting piracy on the high seas. Mahmoud is flying in from Qatar and this is a rare opportunity to hear him in the UK.

Harry Sidebottom is the author of the bestselling Warrior of Rome series of novels. Their hero, Ballista, is an exiled Angle prince who has become an officer in the Imperial Field Army during the Roman Empire’s crisis of the third century.