Death Rituals & Grief: In Conversation with Sofka Zinovieff & Julia Samuel

Sofka’s latest novel, Stealing Dad, was inspired by the extraordinary circumstances surrounding her father’s death, including being barred, along with her siblings, from attending his funeral. This rupture, a total absence of ritual at the moment when it was most needed, as well as her background as a social anthropologist, prompted her to investigate what funerals actually do, and why, across every culture and every historical period, humans instinctively create ceremonies around death.

In Every Family Has a Story, her bestselling follow-up to Grief Works and This Too Shall Pass, much-loved psychotherapist Julia Samuel invites us into her sessions as she explores the relationships that have the power to touch us and hurt us most: those with our family. Through eight beautifully told case studies, covering a variety of families across multiple generations, she analyses common issues from losing a parent to children leaving home, and from separation to step-relationships.

Ticket includes a welcome drink, book signing and a chance to explore Dr Johnson's House.

Doors open 6pm; Talk starts 6.30pm.

Sofka was born in London, has Russian ancestry and is attached to Greece. She is the acclaimed author of three works of non-fiction: Eurydice Street, Red Princess, and The Mad Boy, Lord Berners, My Grandmother and Me which was a New York Times Editors’ Choice. She has written three novels, The House on Paradise Street, a BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime, and Putney, an explosive and thought-provoking novel about the far-reaching repercussions of an illicit relationship between a young girl and a much older man; and was named a Best Book of The Year in The Observer, The Spectator and the New Statesman.

Julia is a leading psychotherapist and one of the UK’s most trusted voices on grief and bereavement. In 2016, she was awarded an MBE in recognition of her services to bereaved children and in 2017, Middlesex University awarded her an Honorary Doctorate. Julia has published three books which were all Sunday Times bestsellers and published in 17 territories: Grief Works (2017), This Too Shall Pass: stories of Change Crisis and Hopeful Beginnings (2022) and Every Family Has a Story: How to Grow and Move Forward Together (2023).

Please note, we have limited capacity and early booking is recommended.

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