Novelist Lawrence Hill, author of The Book of Negroes, will present the 2013 Massey Lectures, it has been announced. He will be basing his talks around the theme of blood. “I am interested in how beliefs, traditions, rituals, phobias, and obsessions about blood influence how we see ourselves individually and societally,” said Hill.

Hill joins Douglas Coupland and Margaret Atwood as prominent Canadian novelists who have delivered the Masseys in recent years.