Sebastian Faulks: Guardian Review Book Club

Sebastian Faulks joins John Mullan for a discussion of his celebrated novel Birdsong.

In 1916, after embarking on a doomed love affair with the unhappily married Madame Azaire, Stephen Wraysford enlists as an army officer, and goes to fight in World War I. Sixty years later his granddaughter Elizabeth discovers his journals, and sets about deciphering them. Through these two narratives the novel traces Stephen's harrowing experiences in the blood-soaked trenches of northern France.

Sebastian Faulks is the bestselling author of Human Traces, The Fatal Englishman and Engleby. In 2008 he wrote the one-off James Bond novel, Devil May Care, to mark the centenary of Ian Fleming’s birth. The critically acclaimed Birdsong is the second in a trilogy of novels set in France during the first world war  (which includes The Girl at the Lion d'Or and Charlotte Gray), and was adapted for the West end stage in 2010. 
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Hosted by John Mullan, professor of English at University College London, The Guardian's Book Club examines a book a month, via a weekly column in the Guardian Review and a live Q&A session with the author. To be the first to find out about forthcoming events and featured authors sign up to The Guardian's Book Club newsletter.

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