Mai Al-Nakib & May-Lan Tan

Two extraordinary new practitioners of the short story form come together in Manchester for an evening of great fiction. Kuwait writer Mai Al-Nakib’s first collection The Hidden Light of Objects won the Edinburgh First Fiction Award, and The National introduced her as ‘an exciting new literary voice’. Set amid Middle Eastern unrest, these luminous and beautifully written stories capture overlooked moments in the lives of ordinary people, and the power of objects to hold extraordinary memories.

Born in Hong Kong, May-Lan Tan lives in London and her debut collection Things to Make and Break was shortlisted for the 2014 Guardian First Book Award. In her sharp and arrestingly intimate stories, a pole dancer named Proust becomes a ghost, a star falls for her stunt double and a woman finds nude photos of her husband's exes and tracks them down. The authors will be in conversation with MLF’s Kate Feld.