Event overview
Author Joe Dunthorne discusses his new memoir, Children of Radium, with Tom Lee
Joe Dunthorne had always wanted to write about his great-grandfather, Siegfried: an eccentric scientist who invented radioactive toothpaste and a Jewish refugee from the Nazis who returned to Germany under cover of the Berlin Olympics to pull off a heist on his own home.
The only problem was that Siegfried had already written the book of his life –an unpublished, two-thousand page memoir so dry and rambling that none of his living descendants had managed to read it. And, as it turned out when Joe finally read the manuscript himself, it told a very different story from the one he thought he knew.
Thus begins a mystery which stretches across the twentieth century and around the world, from Berlin to Ankara, New York, Glasgow and eventually London – a mystery about the production of something much more sinister than toothpaste. On the trail of one ‘jolly grandpa’ with a patchy psychiatric history and an encyclopaedic knowledge of poison gases, Joe Dunthorne is forced to confront the uncomfortable questions that lie at the heart of every family. Can we ever understand where we come from? Is every family in the end a work of fiction? And even if the truth can be found –will we be able to live with it?
CHILDREN OF RADIUM is a remarkable, searching meditation on individual and collective inheritance. Witty and wry, deeply humane, and endlessly surprising, it considers the long half-life of trauma, the weight of guilt and the ever-evasive nature of the truth.
JOE DUNTHORNE is a poet and novelist. His debut novel, Submarine, was translated into fifteen languages and made into an award-winning film. His second novel, Wild Abandon, won the Royal Society of Literature’s Encore Award. His debut poetry collection, O Positive, was published by Faber & Faber in 2019. His latest book, Children of Radium – a family memoir about chemical weapons – will be published in April 2025. He was born in Wales and lives in London.
Joe will be in conversation with author and Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing, Tom Lee.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 26 Mar 2025 | 5:00pm - 6:00pm |
Accessibility
If you are attending an event and need the College to help with any mobility requirements you may have, please contact the event organiser in advance to ensure we can accommodate your needs.
