Writer and film director Hannah Rothschild talks about her novel ‘The Improbability of Love’. The title takes its name from a lost masterpiece by 18th-century French painter, Antoine Watteau found by the hero Annie McDee in a second-hand shop. Annie is alone after the ending of a relationship and in a dead-end job. She sets out to discover the true identity of the painting and finds herself pursued by a series of characters who would do anything to possess the painting.

Rothschild’s documentary films have appeared on the BBC and the American cable channel HBO. She has written scripts for director Ridley Scott and Working Title Films. Rothschild is also author of ‘The Baroness: The Search for Nica the Rebellious Rothschild’, the story of her great-aunt Pannonica Rothschild, who rejected her comfortable family circumstances to become a jazz philanthropist. Here she talks to Nicolette Jones, children’s books editor of The Sunday Times.

Rothschild and Jones are graduates of St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford, and this event is part of St Hilda’s Day at the festival.