It is entirely fitting that acclaimed art historian and curator Rebecca Birrell’s first novel focuses on an artist building a new life – Rebecca curated the recent rehang of paintings in the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Galleries 1–5. Set in 1930s Germany, Rebecca describes Venus, Vanishing as ‘bearing witness to the slow then sudden collapse of a world of pleasure and freedom’. The art of her protagonist Hannah could be what secures her survival – or denies her any chance of escape. Come and discover this gripping and vivid novel.

In conversation with Emily Lawford.