Episode description

American writer and visual artist Audrey Niffenegger talks about her bestselling novel The Time Traveler’s Wife - a magical love story with a twist.

Funny, quirky, and occasionally heartbreaking, this is the story of a relationship lived in the moment – even if those moments are all in the wrong order.

Clare and Henry met when Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when she was twenty-two and he was thirty. Because Henry is a time traveller. He suffers from a rare genetic condition that means he can be pulled forwards or backwards through time at any moment, without his control.

Against this backdrop, Clare and Henry build a deep and passionate relationship that spans Clare’s whole life and most of Henry’s – all while trying to live a normal life. But unlike most couples, they know how it will end from very early on. Audrey Niffenegger explores the depths of love and trust and inevitable grief and loss through her unusual and moving novel.

(Picture: Audrey Niffenegger. Photo credit: Dennis Hearne, courtesy MacAdam/Cage.)