Wednesday 14th October 2026
6.30 (Doors) for 7pm discussion.
Join us in celebrating the publication of The Surviving Cells by Brian Willems published by Les Fugitives. To mark this event Brian Willems will be in conversation with Hannah Hutchings-Georgiou.
Taking place in present-day, Minneapolis. Dr Ana Jovanovic, oncologist, goes against the advice of her hospital's tumour board and schedules her patient Jonathan for exploratory surgery. When a tragic event sends the doctor’s life into a tailspin, she takes a sudden sabbatical. Now sharply aware of her own mortality, the doctor is confronted with decisions about quality of life and quality of death.
'In The Surviving Cells, bureaucratic bullshit will pollute the best of intentions. But love is everywhere as well, sprouting like an invasive plant. Brian Willems’ close tracking of a vivid consciousness that (without warning) begins to lose access to external reality is both heartbreaking and stunning. I cannot stop thinking about this book.'
Dodie Bellamy, author of When the Sick Rule the World
"The intricacies of The Surviving Cells feel simultaneously painful and unnerving while its cinematic jump cuts are compelling and perhaps liberating. ‘What is actually scary about the highway is that parts of it are familiar, like the names of the exits, but the thing itself is strange.’"
Rachel Cattle, author of Uh Huh Her
‘The Surviving Cells is a highly personal, detailed, and meticulous novel about the unbearable complexity of care. It reminds us that survival is never simple, nor the risks we take when helping others to do so. After reading it, you'll never see medicine – or love – the same way again.’
Susan Finlay, author of The Jacques Lacan Foundation
Biographies:
Brian Willems - was born in Minnesota, and now lives and works in Croatia, teaching literature at the University of Split. Brian’s poetry and prose have appeared in The Antioch Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, Things Magazine, Prague Literary Review
Hannah Hutchings-Georgiou - Hannah Hutchings-Georgiou is a writer, teacher and editor based in London. She has a PhD in English Literature from UCL, an MA in Eighteenth-Century Studies from King’s College, London, a BA in English Literature from the University of Cambridge, and a Diploma in Fine Art from Camberwell College of Arts. She currently teaches Global and Black British Literature courses at City Lit and has taught in schools, community groups and at UCL. Her writing is published by Prototype, Elephant Magazine, Wallpaper*, Art Monthly, The London Magazine and many others, and she has recently written exhibition essays for Victoria Miro, theCOLAB and Cable Depot. Hannah regularly moderates arts talks for bookshops, festivals and Fane Online.