We are delighted to welcome Colin Thubron to the club to talk about his novel Passage.

This short, breathtakingly hypnotic novel held me in its grip until the very last word. Miranda Seymour

Passage is a long-simmering love triangle set in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, from the Booker-longlisted novelist and travel writer.

Kathleen lies awake in the operating theatre as she undergoes brain surgery, her husband Robert watching. Soon afterwards, the couple leave for an ill-advised holiday in Egypt, together with the third person in their marriage, Robert’s brother Alan. Each of them is aware that the tumour in Kathleen’s brain may be fatal.

For Kathleen, an actor, the trauma of her operation brings a haunting sense of the frailty of her identity. Her descent along the ancient Egyptian tomb corridors – symbols of the passage beyond death – evokes a fevered elation.

Ashraf, their Egyptian guide, is compulsively drawn to her, even as he is caught up in the conflicted politics of his country. As each character struggles with the weight of the past and the uncertainty of the future, the mounting tension resolves in delusion – and a shattering betrayal.

In taut, shimmering prose, Thubron interweaves the perspectives of his four protagonists in a narrative of mesmerising scope and power.

No writer has more successfully combined the disciplines of travel writing and fiction than Colin Thubron … A master craftsman The Times

One of our greatest prose writers in any genre. William Dalyrymple

Colin Thubron is a celebrated travel writer, winner of many prizes and awards. His classic travel books include: Among the Russians (1983), Behind the Wall (1987), In Siberia (1999), Shadow of the Silk Road (2006) and The Amur River (2021). He is also the author of eight acclaimed works of fiction, including A Cruel Madness (1984), winner of the PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award, To the Last City, long-listed for the Booker Prize (2002), and Night of Fire (2017). Passage is his ninth novel, shaped by a journey to Egypt.

To book please contact the booking office at bookings@nlc.org.uk or call 0207 968 0919

The two-course lunch, followed by coffee, costs £39. It’s in the Lady Violet Room and we start with drinks at 12:30pm.  Please book early and inform the club of any dietary requirements.