On 27 January 2014, International Holocaust Day, Peter Lantos was interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme by Evan Davis and later in the afternoon by Huw Edwards on BBC’s 24 hour News Channel. As a result the sale of Parallel Lines on Amazon shot up from nowhere to the 214 position of all books sold.
Parallel Lines was republished by Arcadia Books London with a new cover and foreword by Lisa Appignanesi in January. This is the fourth impression of this much acclaimed book.
“Closed Horizon is about the future – a future that is not too far distanced from the here and now – and for that reason elicits a cold frisson of fear…One is reminded again of Orwell and Big Brother.” Review, Camden New Journal
“You do not need to be familiar of the breakthroughs of neuroscience to be grasped by Closed Horizon…The book’s cast is vividly constructed, as is the physical setting: the city of London, with its exquisite blend of shiny modernity and misty tradition, is a character itself…The humanity in everything that fascinates Lantos, and that permeates the entire book…Last but not least, the book is fun!” International Journal of Social Psychiatry
“Despite the predictable Orwellian overtones, I really enjoyed this book…It is a hard task to bring a new perspective to the slightly hoary sci-fi trope of a totalitarian near-future, but Lantos’s scientific background gives him an edge here… This novel had a lot to live up to, given the success of his autobiography, Parallel Lines. …Overall, this is an impressive debut novel…” The Bulletin of the Royal College of Pathologists
Peter was invited to two literary festivals in Australia in 2012. At the end of August at the Sydney Jewish Writers’ Festival in Sydney, he was invited to read from his favourite book at the Opening Ceremony (he selected Andre Schwarz-Bart’s The Last of the Just) and participated in three sessions: Stolen Childhoods, Tell All? How Much Do You Reveal in a Memoir? and Power and Politics. To the first two discussions, he brought experience from his well-received memoir, Parallel Lines, which has been reprinted for this occasion. His novel, Closed Horizon, paints a terrifying picture of the surveillance state of the near future in which power lies in the politics of information gatherings of individuals.
At the beginning of September, at the much larger Brisbane Writers’ Festival, opened by Germaine Greer with a controversial speech, the subjects of his sessions were even more challenging with a bias towards human behaviour: What Makes Us Happy? and Humans Are Fascinating. The third discussion was easily the most controversia, having the title of Extreme Right. This session, broadcast live by ABC National Radio, and screened in a shortened form on television, had the ambitious aim of discussing the rise of extreme right throughout the world.
In Melbourne Peter gave an interview on National Radio’s Sunday Extra in the Extra Perspective Series. Both in Sydney and in Melbourne he signed copies of his books: Parallel Lines and Closed Horizon.
Closed Horizon was launched on 23 May 2012 at Daunt Books in Marylebone High Street, London W1, and the event was attended by a large number of people.
Following his successful trip to Australia to promote Parallel Lines during which he had several interviews including one on the popular Classic FM programme by Margaret Throsby, Peter Lantos has been invited to the Sydney Jewish Writers’ Festival to be held 25-28 August, 2012 and to the Brisbane Writers’ Festival, 5-9 September 2012. This tour will be an opportunity to promote his new novel Closed Horizon.
The author with friends.
The Closed Horizon book launch at Daunt Books on 23rd May 2012.
Photographs and Video are courtesy of Peter Toth.