Emma Donoghue

Bookmark welcomes bestselling, award-winning novelist Emma Donoghue to Charlottetown for the launch of The Paris Express on April 25 at 7 pm at the Florence Simmons Performance Hall in Charlottetown. The evening will be moderated by Deirdre Kessler.

Emma Donoghue, the “soul-stirring” (Oprah Daily) nationally bestselling author of Room, returns with a sweeping historical novel about an infamous 1895 disaster at the Paris Montparnasse train station.

Based on an 1895 disaster that went down in history when it was captured in a series of surreal, extraordinary photographs, The Paris Express is a propulsive novel set on a train packed with a fascinating cast of characters who hail from as close as Brittany and as far as Russia, Ireland, Algeria, Pennsylvania, and Cambodia. Members of parliament hurry back to Paris to vote; a medical student suspects a girl may be dying; a secretary tries to convince her boss of the potential of moving pictures; two of the train’s crew build a life away from their wives; a young anarchist makes a terrifying plan, and much more.

Donaghue is a novelist, screenwriter and playwright. Her novel Room has sold almost three million copies, won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker and Orange Prizes. Donoghue scripted the film adaptation, which was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The Wonder was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and Donoghue co-wrote the screen adaptation. The Pull of the Stars was nominated for the Trillium Book Award and Scotiabank Giller Prize. Donoghue’s fiction ranges from the contemporary to the historical and includes two books for young readers.

An Evening with Emma Donoghue is a free, ticketed event and open to everyone. Tickets are available online (bookmarkreads.ca/events) or by calling Bookmark (902-566-4888).