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Original new writer Louise Stern talks to writer and journalist Paul Blezard about her debut novel, Ismael and His Sisters. Stern grew up in the United States, fourth-generation deaf in her family. Chattering, a collection of short stories published in 2011, explored the lives of young girls out to party and travel the world – the one thing that marked them all out was that they had all grown up deaf. The collection won Stern acclaim as an original voice.

Ismael and his Sisters returns to the same themes explored in the short stories. It is set in a Mayan village where many inhabitants are deaf and all communicate in sign language. The novel is about the power of family, the barriers we build out of language and the dark elemental forces that can overwhelm us. Stern will talk about the three months she spent in a Mayan village with a high incidence of deafness as research for her novel.

Stern works as an assistant to the British artist, Sam Taylor –Wood.

This event is part of the festival’s American strand.