Anna Smaill is a classically trained violinist and poet. Her debut collection of poetry, The Violinist in Spring, was listed as one of 2006’s best books by the New Zealand Listener. Her debut novel, The Chimes, presented at Wordfest 2016, was longlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. Smaill currently lives in Wellington, New Zealand, and supervises MA students in Creative Writing for the International Institute of Modern Letters. The author appears at Wordfest with support from the New Zealand Book Council.

The Chimes

The Chimes is a novel about what might happen if the written word were replaced with music. After the end of a brutal civil war, the written language has been banned, and life is orchestrated by a vast musical instrument that renders people unable to form new memories. The past is a mystery. Each new day feels the same as the last, and recalling anything that existed before is blasphemy. Adrift in this reimagined world is Simon, a young orphan who embarks on a journey from his farmland home to London with a sense that he must fulfil a forgotten promise – to find someone. Along the way, he meets a charismatic young man named Lucien. As a budding romance forms, they realize that slowly, inexplicably, Simon is beginning to remember. Together, they learn that nothing they ever believed about their world is true.