Last night in Toronto physicist Neil Turok delivered the last of his Massey Lectures, which will be broadcast on CBC Radio Nov. 12“16. In attendance was the man who will present next year’s lecture series: novelist Lawrence Hill, author of The Book of Negroes (HarperCollins Canada).

There’s still no official word on what topic Hill will address, but you can bet it will be a departure from Turok’s chosen theme. A leading expert on the origins of the universe and quantum theory, Turok is the director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario. His lectures are collected in The Universe Within: From Quantum to Cosmos, published by House of Anansi Press.

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

UPDATE: Hill tells Q&Q the theme of his Massey Lectures will be blood. “I am interested in how beliefs, traditions, rituals, phobias, and obsessions about blood influence how we see ourselves individually and societally,” the author wrote in an email.