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 ]
Penguin is publishing a new anthology, The Penguin Book of the Contemporary British Short Story, "a literary treasure trove" of "30 great short stories published in the last 20 years", featuring contributors such as Zadie Smith, Irvine Welsh and Neil Gaiman. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2018-08-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Ali Smith's Winter (Hamish Hamilton), Laurie Penny's Bitch Doctrine (Bloomsbury) and Reni Eddo-Lodge's Jhalak Prize-winning Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race (Bloomsbury) are among the10 titles longlisted for the 2018 Orwell Prize for Political Writing. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2018-04-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The great-niece of Virginia Woolf is to publish her debut novel in July with Three Hares Publishing. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2018-03-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Ali Smith’s seasonal novel Winter (Hamish Hamilton), Sally Rooney’s "perfectly observed" début Conversations with Friends (Faber) and the eagerly anticipated first instalment of Philip Pullman’s Book of Dust trilogy, La Belle Sauvage (Penguin/David Fickling Books), were among the critics’... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-12-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hay Festival's first weekend has kicked off with a host of events featuring writers including Colm Tóibín, Helen Fielding and Stephen Fry who discussed issues such as using flashbacks in writing, criticisms of anti-feminism and "aggregating news agencies" such as Facebook. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-05-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones’s Baby: The Diaries (Vintage) has won the 2017 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction, making it third time lucky for the author. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-05-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones’s Baby (Jonathan Cape) bags the author her second shortlisting for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction shortlist. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-04-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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These days, it is minimally staffed and funded firms who invest in new authors. The giants avoid such risk, only picking the writers once their names are madePaul McVeigh and Kirsty Logan are authors you may have heard of. Both of their debuts were published by Salt, an independent publisher.... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2016-12-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Irvine Welsh, James Kelman and Jenni Fagan have made the 2016 Saltire Society Literary Awards shortlist announced at a special event in Edinburgh, alongside emerging talents Chitra Ramaswamy and Martin MacInnes. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-10-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Irvine Welsh and James Kelman are among the authors shortlisted in this year's Saltire Literary Awards. Continue reading at BBC News
[ BBC News | 2016-10-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Irvine Welsh, the author of Trainspotting, is adapting his novel Crime for television, according to the Guardian. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-10-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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To accompany forthcoming film of the same name, the book will recount the bestselling heroine’s ‘somewhat bumpy journey into motherhood’Bridget Jones is back: author Helen Fielding has reunited with her bumbling, much-loved creation yet again, with the latest instalment in her misadventures set... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2016-08-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Helen Fielding is set to publish a new book in the Bridget Jones franchise in time for Christmas entitled Bridget Jones’s Baby: The Diaries. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-08-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Withdrawal from the EU would lead to "suffering" in the creative industries, according to an open letter signed by 220 thought-leaders in the literary world, including 2015 Baileys winner Ali Smith and Granta editor Max Porter, recent winner of the International Dylan Thomas Prize. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-06-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Tales by Ali Smith and Chris Cleave are to contribute to a short story collection highlighting the “frighteningly common” experience of Europe’s refugees. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-06-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Writers David Mitchell, Ali Smith, Cathy Cassidy, Nick Hornby and David Nicholls are among the top names who have signed an open letter supporting the occupiers of Carnegie Library and condemning the proposed changes to the Lambeth library service. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-04-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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What are Ivy League students reading that the rest of us aren't? More British literature and more philosophy. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2016-02-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Pushkin Press is partnering with literary institution The London Library to produce a series of "beautifully designed" books containing material from authors such as Lewis Carroll, E M Forster and Virginia Woolf. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-02-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A £25,000 donation from Virginia Woolf's great niece has put the wheels in motion for a Bloomsbury Group £8.5m "centenary project". Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-01-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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