| Book Now: Acclaimed author Lucy Beckett takes the Ryedale Festival to The Edge of All Empires with new novel reading. This year’s Ryedale Festival programme encompasses more than music. Local novelist and historian Lucy Beckett discusses her new book, set in the Balkans with echoes of the past resonating with today’s situation in Europe. The Balkans, like Ukraine in and out of empires for two thousand years, have famously seen much strife. At their heart is Bosnia and the city of Sarajevo, for centuries, astonishingly, a city of peaceful co-existence. Orthodox and Catholic Christians, Muslims and Jews, lived side by side and shared much, until the twentieth century collapse of empires, and Hitler’s war, shattered this community and led to the horrors of the 1990s. It is a grim and fascinating story, and the background to Lucy Beckett’s new novel. Monday 17th July, 11am – On the Edge of All Empires – Helmsley Arts Centre Tickets on sale at https://ryedalefestival.com/event/08-on-the-edge-of-all-the-empires-lucy-beckett/ |
