Killing Shakespeare

If you could travel to any place and time in history, what would you do? For Isabel, Suresh, and Nathan, three teenagers in Ms Sullivan's high school English class, the answer is: 1613 when Shakespeare's Globe Theatre burned down. Nathan intends to ensure that all of Shakespeare's plays burn down with it, so students will never have to study Shakespeare again. When they land in 1592, losing their time travel device during the journey, they are stranded in Elizabethan London with no return in sight. Now they must grow and adapt to survive, or die. In the process, they reckon with historical figures such as Francis Drake, John Dee, Walter Raleigh, and a young up-and-coming Shakespeare. Filled with intrigue and the volatile history of its time, Killing Shakespeare is a fantasy that examines life, love, literacy, and their importance to us.

Koom Kankesan is the author of The Panic Button, The Rajapaksa Stories, and The Tamil Dream. His other interests include film and comics, about which he writes in Comicon.com. He has interviewed comics practitioners for The Deconstructing Comics Podcast. He lives in Toronto..