Internationally bestselling author Susanna Clarke introduces her brand-new novella, The Bishop of Durham Attempts to Surrender the City, in an exclusive event in the city where the story takes place.

Set in the year 1110, this new chapter in the lore of the spellbinding Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell follows the Bishop of Durham on an epic quest through an other-worldly North East of England to a New Castle on the banks of the River Tyne, in an attempt to surrender to the fairy host besieging his city.

Susanna Clarke’s debut novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell has been published in more than 34 countries and has sold over four million copies worldwide. It was longlisted for the 2004 Booker Prize and won the British Book Awards Newcomer of the Year, the Hugo Award, and the World Fantasy Award in 2005. Clarke’s second novel, Piranesi, was an international bestseller and won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2021.

Chaired by Claire Malcolm, New Writing North