The ticket price is redeemable towards a copy of Carnaval Fever on the night.

Date: Sunday, 23rd of August

Location: Round Table Books CIC, 10-11 Granville Arcade, Coldharbour Lane, SW9 8PR (next to Honest Burger)

Time: 18:30 doors & to begin at 19:00

The ticket price is redeemable towards a copy of Carnaval Fever on the night.

Join us for an evening with Yuliana Ortiz Ruano, the author of Carnaval Fever. She will be in conversation with our very own Meera Ghanshamdas

‘Thunderously musical writing… tension that turns up the volume until your hands shake as you turn each page.’

Sheltered within her grandmother's fiercely protective household, Ainhoa blossoms under the guidance of her constellation of aunts—women who become her teachers, guardians, and spiritual anchors. Through Ainhoa's keen, observant eyes, readers experience how music and dance – particularly during the explosive energy of Carnaval – don't merely entertain but form the very heartbeat of existence, a pulsing testament to Afro-Ecuadorian identity and resistance.

Yet beneath this tapestry of warmth and celebration, Carnaval Fever fearlessly confronts the shadows: crushing economic hardship, the heartbreak of migration, and the ever-present threat of male violence hovering at the community's edges. At its luminous core, however, this novel stands as a defiant celebration of women's resilience, collective power, and the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood that sustain communities through generations.

Yuliana Ortiz Ruano (Esmeraldas, Ecuador, 1992) is a research professor at the University of the Arts of Ecuador, and an Afro-music DJ. A novelist and a poet, she is the author of the collections Sovoz, Canciones desde el fin del mundo, and Cuaderno del imposible retorno a Pangea. Carnaval Fever won the Joaquín Gallegos Lara Award, the Primo Romanzo Latinoamericano Award, and the PEN Presents English PEN Award.

Madeleine Arenivar is a literary translator from Spanish living in Quito, Ecuador. Her short translations have been published in Another Chicago Magazine, Latin American Literature Today, Los Angeles Review, and the Best Literary Translations Anthology (Deep Vellum, 2024). She is a winner of the PEN Presents program (2023), and a past attendee of Bread Loaf Translator’s Conference. She has degrees from Vassar College and the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) Ecuador.

Books and refreshments from Round Table’s Bar will be available for purchase on the night.