Poet and violinist Anna Smaill’s acclaimed debut novel The Chimes constructs a world ruled by a large musical instrument, and navigated via a musical language. It’s also a place where people are incapable of retaining memories. Bernard Beckett’s Lullaby envisages a world where memories, like body organs, can be transplanted. Futuristic, philosophical and written in inventive prose, both novels invite readers to consider life’s essentials. Smaill and Beckett join Paula Morris for a discussion of fiction and memory.

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