It’s a novel, more than anything, about how we imagine vastly better worlds than the ones we’re living in

So said prize-winning novelist and poet A K Blakemore when interviewed by The Bookseller about her dazzlingly inventive new novel, Doom Painting, a visceral, teeming epic which plunges us into the bloody action of the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381.

Set over 16 days, the novel roves across England as the revolt swells and the rebels march to London to take their demands to the child-king, Richard II. Out of the swarming crowds of the rebellion emerges its charismatic leader Wat Tyler, who helps shape an identity for the English that has never been lost.

A K Blakemore, whose debut novel The Manningtree Witches won the Desmond Elliott Prize, is one of the UK’s most acclaimed young literary novelists. We’re delighted to welcome her to discuss her thrilling retelling of the Peasants’ Revolt which renders it a definitive moment in British history.

Chaired by Cathleen Mair

Venue: Sub Rooms

Tickets: £14, on sale from 11 September from the Sub Rooms box office