















My books
By Guinevere Glasfurd

My books
Just two books but I am as proud of them as it is possible to be. I am interested in fiction's critical function, how it can be used to interrogate the past.
The Words in My Hand -- the story of Dutch maid Helena Jans and French philosopher Rene Descartes -- questions the historiography around Descartes and the lack of curiosity many historians and biographers have shown his lover, Helena Jans. Helena knew Descartes at a pivotal time in his life -- why, then, when their relationship is so well known, is she almost completely overlooked?
The Year Without Summer is a novel of climate crisis. It interested me that in 1816 most people had little or no knowledge of the Tambora eruption that devastated so much of the world that year. Those who had heard of the eruption did not understand its connection to what they were living through. Famine, disease, floods, wildfire, drought -- all triggered by a small shift in global temperature.