One of Spain’s most essential novelists Sara Mesa talks to Rosie Goldsmith about her novel exploring how a family's core beliefs can be twisted into tools of quiet domination. A father obsessed with morality and order rules over the household: journals monitored, food restricted and personal space denied. His wife and children each respond in their own way: isolation, kleptomania, reinvention and suppression. The Family is a novel about the damage done in the name of principle and the long aftershocks of childhood. There will be a book signing after this event. Get ahead of your Festival reading and visit the Waterstones Cheltenham Literature Festival bookshop and support Cheltenham Festivals with every purchase.

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