A special event to mark publication of the new novel Call Me Ishmaelle, a dazzling female-led re-imagining of Melville's Moby-Dick, by acclaimed writer and film-maker Xiaolu Guo.

Host Gareth Evans will join Xiaolu after the screening of John Huston's impressive adaptation to talk about her novel's intentions, Melville's enduring influence, and the film itself.

Call Me Ishmaelle will be on sale at the event and Xiaolu will be available to sign copies.

The most well-known English language film adaptation of Melville's hugely influential and complex novel, John Huston's 1956 Moby Dick is co-scripted with Ray Bradbury and was the latter's first feature work. Shot in Ireland, Madeira, and Wales, its character-led drama was heightened by off-screen tensions between Huston, Bradbury, and Peck (an imposing Captain Ahab). A vigorous, atmospheric, cinematically impressive, often haunting telling, the film was well-received when released. Many stories were attached to its making, which will be explored in the conversation.

Call Me Ishmaelle reimagines the epic battle between man and nature in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick from a female perspective. As the American Civil War breaks out in 1861, Ishmaelle, orphaned and disguised as a cabin boy, boards the Nimrod, a whaling ship led by the obsessive Captain Seneca, a free Black man of heroic stature who is haunted by a tragic past. Here, she finds protectors in Polynesian harpooner, Kauri, and Taoist monk, Muzi, whose readings of the I-Ching guide their quest. Through the bloody male violence of whaling, and the unveiling of her feminine identity, Ishmaelle realises there is a mysterious bond between herself and the mythical white whale, Moby Dick. Xiaolu Guo has crafted a dramatically different, feminist narrative that stands alongside the original while offering a powerful exploration of nature, gender and human purpose.

Xiaolu Guo was born in China. An acclaimed film-maker as well as a writer, she published six books in China before moving to Britain in 2002. Her books here include Village of Stone; A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, and I Am China. Her recent memoir, Once Upon a Time in the East, won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her most recent novel A Lover's Discourse was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize 2020. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a visiting professor at the Free University in Berlin.

Cast:
Gregory Peck, Leo Genn, Richard Baseheart, Orson Welles