Two Canadian writers join forces to launch the festival’s Canadian Literature, Art and Culture Programme. Debut novelist DW Wilson talks to fellow Canadian writer Ross King about his new work Ballistics. Wilson, who grew up in British Columbia, is a winner of the BBC National Short Story Award. Ballistics, a novel of fathers and sons and of vengeance and forgiveness, was selected as one of The Waterstones Eleven, for the best fiction debuts of 2013. It follows Alan West as he returns home to a small town in Canada. His grandfather, Cecil, has just suffered a heart attack and sets him the task of tracking down the father he has never known so that Cecil can make his peace.

Wilson is the recipient of the University of East Anglia’s inaugural Man Booker Prize Scholarship – the most prestigious award available to students in the MA programme. His short story, The Dead Roads, won the BBC National Short Story Award in 2011. Once You Break a Knuckle, his debut story collection, was published by Bloomsbury in 2012. It was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. King is a writer and biographer whose works include Brunelleschi’s Dom, a top-10 New York Times bestseller, Leonardo and The Last Supper and Machiavelli: Philosopher of Power.

This event is part of the festival’s Canadian Literature, Art and Culture Programme. Each year, the festival stages a programme to reflect Canada’s exceptional contribution to literature, art and culture.