'The Forger's Ink': Jo Mazelis in conversation with Sarah Gamble

Registration is required

Dyniaethau a'r Gwyddorau Cymdeithasol - Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

This event is part of the Sefydliad Diwylliannol - Cultural Institute series

Speaker

Jo Mazelis

Speaker's Biography

Jo Mazelis is a novelist, poet, short story writer and photographer living in Swansea. Her first novel 'Significance' (Seren Books, 2014) won the 2015 Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize. Her collection of stories, 'Diving Girls', was shortlisted for the Commonwealth ‘Best First Book’ and Wales Book of the Year. Her second book, 'Circle Games', was long listed for Wales Book of the Year. Her stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4, published in various anthologies and magazines, and translated into Danish. Her third collection of stories 'Ritual, 1969' (Seren Books, 2016) was shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year and long listed for the Edge Hill Prize 2017. Blister & other Stories was shortlisted for the International Rubery Award.

From: 26 Nov 2025, 6 p.m.
To: 26 Nov 2025, 7 p.m.
Location: Taliesin Create, Swansea University, Singleton Park, SA2 8PZ, Swansea

'The Forger’s Ink' by Jo Mazelis

“The Wollstonecraft-Shelley story is a founding myth in Gothic literature; Jo Mazelis tears it to shreds and reassembles it, amid the thick sea mists of south Wales, with Cymbeline and the Manson girls among her dramatic sources.” – Geoff Sawers

1816 – The Year Without a Summer; Fanny Imlay, half-sister of Mary Shelly, has travelled to Swansea to escape her dreary existence in her stepfather’s London home. She has reached the end of the road, but something changes her fate.

Many years later, in 1971, a strange woman called Jude arrives at a bookshop claiming to know the owner’s wife, Helena. She carries a cache of mysterious documents which bring Fanny’s story back to life. Did Fanny really commit suicide in 1816, as historian’s thought? The documents suggest not, hinting instead at a faked death and escape towards independence. But they also imply that the re-born Fanny remained misunderstood, mis-used and rejected, in the manner of Shelley’s Frankenstein monster.

These young women’s lives are precarious. Whether bound by duty or free, they each struggle to find a place in the world. As the mysteries multiply, the lives of the women begin to intertwine, casting the origin of the letters into doubt.

Merging Gothic body-swaps and dark mansions with 70s politics and feminism, The Forger’s Ink is an enthralling and mysterious novel by Jo Mazelis.

Contact: Cultural Institute - Swansea University (Email: cultural-institute@swansea.ac.uk)

Website: https://bit.ly/forgersink

Event created by: m.t.hughes