The Booker-winning novelist is relaunching a series of neglected novels by black British writers. She explains why they deserve a new readership In today’s culture, it’s as though black British literary history began relatively recently, and new books are published without reference to or knowledge of what has gone before. This is not the case with white writers. Publishers, critics and readers will often understand where books sit within their literary contexts and cultural ecosystem. We can trace the literary lineage of Douglas Stuart’s Booker-winning Shuggie Bain back to the works of James Kelman and Irvine Welsh. Ghosts by Dolly Alderton is in conversation with Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones series and all the novels that were published in its wake, just as Ali Smith’s postmodern novels are descendants of Virginia Woolf’s modernist oeuvre. And we know that today’s historical novels have antecedents in their earlier counterparts.Our appreciation of literature is deepened when we understand the foundations from which each new generation creates literature anew, but because so much of the body of black British literature hasn’t been taught in schools or universities, or immortalised on television and film, or even been widely or seriously reviewed in the media and academia, it’s as if each new book is published out of a void. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2021-01-30 11:00:07 UTC ]
News tagged with:
#white writers
#douglas stuart
#james kelman
#irvine welsh
#dolly alderton
#helen fielding
#ali smith
#virginia woolf
#british literature
Why isn’t this book more famous?” asked the writer C.P. Snow about John Williams’s Stoner in 1973, eight years after it was first published by Viking Press. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-04-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with:
#john williams
Looking to provide info to retailers, librarians, and consumers interested in its book-format comics, DC Comics is publishing the DC Entertainment Essential Graphic Novels and Chronology 2013, a 121-page reading guide and index to the publisher’s extensive backlist of collected and original... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-04-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with:
#dc comics
#extensive backlist
Based on the pre-college reading lists, freshmen syllabi, and core programs of more than 100 US colleges and universities, here are 60 books the experts believe that you should have read by sophomore year of college. How does your own literary experience stack up? Take our quiz and find... Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2013-04-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with:
#3rd edition
#sophomore year
Egyptian journalist and bestselling author Ibrahim Issa believes the Arab Spring has added religious oppression to the existing political hardships of the region. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-04-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with:
#arab spring
It has become a truism that “men don’t read women.” The assertion is taken as self-evident by feminist publications like Salon (“while women read books written by men, men do not tend to reciprocate”) and shown anecdotally by blogs. It is also perpetuated by male bastions like Esquire, which... Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2013-04-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with:
#recently released
HarperFiction has signed a novel from author Miranda Beverly-Whittemore following an auction.... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
Author Iain Pears and publisher Faber displayed the work in progress of Pears’ latest novel... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
Debut novelist Taiye Selasi, whose tale of a fractured family Ghana Must Go was published by... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
Writer Thom Donovan says he was sent a cease-and-desist letter by Yoko Ono's lawyers after he published a graphic novel about the life of John Lennon that included some rarely seen photos. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2013-04-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with:
#yoko ono
#cease-and-desist letter
#john lennon
A previously unpublished writer has won the inaugural Historical Novel Society International... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
Parents struggle to create time to read at home and view reading largely as a skill rather than... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with:
#parents struggle
Ebury has acquired the first novel based on ITV drama series "Doc Martin". Fiction... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
A new venture to offer digital short stories and long-form journalism to readers through a... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with:
#long-form journalism
HarperCollins imprint Blue Door has signed an adult novel by children’s author Alex Shearer... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
A list of teachers’ favourite books compiled by the Times Educational Supplement (TES) has... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
Libraries across the country are taking part in a high-tech treasure based on Simon Mayo’s... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with:
#simon mayo
#taking part
We've come a long way since an IBM 704 first croaked its way through Daisy Bell. Now we've got Siri copping an attitude when we ask a stupid question and Google Now feeding information in an incredibly realistic sounding voice. AT&T has its own initiative, dubbed Natural Voices. At this... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2013-04-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with:
#convey emotion
Veteran comics writer Paul Kupperberg—who created the wildly popular issue of the Life with Archie magazine in which Kevin Keller, Archie Comics’ groundbreaking gay character, marries his partner—is releasing a new prose novel, Kevin, through Penguin’s Grosset & Dunlap children’s imprint on... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-03-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with:
#archie comics
It is one of the eccentricities of American publishing that James Salter has not been widely embraced as a great writer. His books are as good as those of post-war novelists like John Updike, Philip Roth, Richard Ford, and critics have often said so, and yet he is nowhere near as beloved or... Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2013-03-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with:
#sounds terrible
#richard ford
#philip roth
#john updike
#widely embraced
Hodder & Stoughton imprint Mulholland Books has acquired the first novel for adults by Marcus... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-03-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |