Novelist Tom McCarthy reading from "The Rhyl Poster" and Q&A

About this event

Who should attend: Students, faculty, and community members interested in contemporary fiction, creative writing, experimental literature, law and literature, European studies, media, and the intersections of art and systems thinking. The event is open to all and especially welcoming to those in creative writing, English, German, modern languages and linguistics, philosophy, humanities and related fields. What you’ll get: Tom McCarthy will read from his acclaimed new novel "The Rhyl Poster" (New York Review Books, 2026) and take part in a Q&A. Attendees will leave with a sharper sense of how formally daring fiction can grapple with power, guilt, information, and justice in the present moment. The twice Booker-shortlisted author of "Remainder," "C, "and "Satin Island" brings his latest work — a political and legal thriller exploring systems, power, guilt, and justice — to Florida State University. Attendees will hear McCarthy read directly from the novel and have the opportunity to engage with him in conversation. Why this matters at FSU: Hosting McCarthy underscores Florida State University’s commitment to bringing significant contemporary writers to campus and connecting students with living literary culture. The event aligns with FSU’s strengths in English, creative writing, and literature, media, and culture; its interdisciplinary work in languages and the FSU Winthrop-King Institute, given the novel’s European legal and political dimensions; and the support of the FSU Honors Program, FSU Humanities Center, the Caldwell Professor, and Frances Cushing Ervin Professor. It offers a rare opportunity for students and the broader Tallahassee community to encounter ambitious, system-focused fiction firsthand. Free and open to the public. About the Speaker Tom McCarthy is a novelist whose work has been translated into more than 20 languages and adapted for cinema, theatre and radio. His first novel, "Remainder," won the 2008 Believer Book Award; his third, "C," was a 2010 Booker Prize finalist, as was his fourth, "Satin Island," in 2015. McCarthy is also author of the study "Tintin and the Secret of Literature," and of the essay collection "Typewriters, Bombs, and Jellyfish." He contributes regularly to publications such as The New York Times, The London Review of Books, Harper’s and Artforum. In 2013 he was awarded the inaugural Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction. His latest novel, "The Making of Incarnation, "was published in 2021. McCarthy has held visiting professorships at the Royal College of Art in London, Columbia University in New York and Städelschule Frankfurt. In 2019 he guest-curated the exhibition "Empty House of the Stare’" at London’s Whitechapel Gallery, and in 2022 will guest-curate a major exhibition, "Holding Pattern," in Kunstnernes Hus Oslo, responding to the art institute’s invitation to explore the themes and motifs of his work. He lives in Berlin, where in 2019 he was a Fellow of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin programme. Born in S