The ACF London is thrilled to welcome highly acclaimed author Andrea Grill and the renowned translator Tess Lewis, presenting Grill’s latest novel Cherubino. Join us for this bilingual reading and book discussion, hosted by Andrea Capovilla (Ingeborg Bachmann Centre), offering you a fascinating insight into the novel as well as their creative processes.

The event is organised in cooperation with the Ingeborg Bachmann Centre for Austrian Literature & Culture at the Institute of Modern Languages Research.

Cherubino, nominated for the 2019 German Book Prize, explores Mozart’s "Le nozze di Figaro" and Nicholas Maw’s opera "Sophie’s Choice". Cherubino charts the pregnancy, relationships and career trajectory of the 39-year-old mezzo soprano Iris Schiffer. Whilst pregnant, she makes her debut as Cherubino in Mozart’s "Le nozze di Figaro "and later rehearses the main part in Nicholas Maw’s opera "Sophie’s Choice". The experience of pregnancy and the dialogue with the unborn child is intertwined with her exploration of her operatic roles and the problems of combining work and parenthood.

Andrea Grill was born in Bad Ischl in 1975, and is a biologist, poet, novelist and translator from Albanian, Italian and Dutch. She also studied evolutionary biology and incorporated her research into texts such as Schmetterlinge. Ein Portrait and her 2015 novel Das Paradies des Doktor Caspari. Grill’s most recent award is the 2021 Anton Wildgans Prize. She lives in Vienna.

This reading will be held live at the Austrian Cultural Forum, 28 Rutland Gate, London SW7 1PQ. Attendance is free, however advance online booking is required.