With Bret Anthony Johnston
Texas Book Festival and First Light Books are thrilled to host Yann Martel, author of the international sensation Life of Pi, discussing his new novel, Son of Nobody, in conversation with internationally bestselling author Bret Anthony Johnston.
Son of Nobody is a brilliant and inventive retelling of the Trojan War through the eyes of two unlikely narrators: an ancient soldier and a modern scholar. At the heart of the novel lies The Psoad, an epic poem that follows Psoas of Midea, a goatherd’s son who leaves his wife and family to fight at Troy. Centuries later, the book’s alternate protagonist—a Canadian academic named Harlow Donne—uncovers the poem’s remnants while studying at Oxford, having left behind a wife and daughter of his own. As he translates the text, a quiet, almost mystical dialogue forms between ancient and modern lives, revealing the perennial ache of homesickness, ambition, longing, and regret.
Blending myth, history, and domestic intimacy, Son of Nobody moves effortlessly from the plains of Troy to the halls of Oxford, and from ancient verse to contemporary footnotes. It offers a fresh angle on the Trojan War—one centered not on kings and demigods, but on ordinary people whose stories rarely survive the centuries.
A book signing will follow the event.
Yann Martel is the author of Life of Pi, the global bestseller that won the 2002 Booker Prize and was adapted to the screen in the Oscar–winning film by Ang Lee. He lives in Saskatoon, Canada.
Bret Anthony Johnston is the internationally bestselling author of We Burn Daylight, Remember Me Like This, and Corpus Christi: Stories. He is the editor of Naming the World and Other Exercises for the Creative Writer, and he wrote the documentary film, Waiting for Lightning. He is the Director of the Michener Center for Writers at UT Austin, where he holds the Mari Sabusawa Michener Regents Chair in Writing.