Falling in Love Is Hard When You’re the Guardian of the Dead

Ayanna Lloyd Banwo’s debut novel When We Were Birds begins in the time before time and follows the uneasy truce between the living and the dead. Cigarettes are offered, liquor is poured, prayers are said, all in the hope that the buried stay buried. This is the story of Yejide, a young woman who becomes […] The post Falling in Love Is Hard When You’re the Guardian of the Dead appeared first on Electric Literature. Continue reading at 'Electric Literature'

[ Electric Literature | 2022-04-01 11:00:00 UTC ]

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Book Deals: Week of March 21, 2022

Berkley buys a debut novel about a mother’s journey across the Caribbean, SJP Lit makes its first acquisition, Kristen Martin sells a book about orphanhood to Bold Type, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-03-18 04:00:00 UTC ]
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7 Novels Set in the Literary World

At the risk of seeming obnoxiously obsessed with ourselves, writers and readers do tend to love books about writers and readers—especially when those fictional writers and readers behave badly. (It’s no wonder, really, why the Bad Art Friend discourse hit a nerve; so many people were frantic... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-03-11 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Imagination, Reality, and Two Very Different Americas

Qian Julie Wang’s debut memoir Beautiful Country is a compelling and intimate portrait of an undocumented childhood. Much like Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows In Brooklyn and Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, we are carried into the heart and mind of a child: this time, a young, undocumented girl in... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-03-10 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Resist Tyranny, Read Dangerously

When I got to an age where I could read the same books as my mom, she started passing them along to me after she had finished. One of the books she gave me was Reading Lolita in Tehran by New York Times best-selling author Azar Nafisi, a book that I remember not only for […] The post Resist... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-03-08 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Exclusive cover reveal: Laura Warrell’s Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm.

Lit Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Laura Warrell’s debut novel Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm, which will be published by Pantheon in fall 2022. Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm follows Circus Palmer, a forty-year-old Boston-based trumpet player and old-school ladies’ man, who lives for his music... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-03-03 15:00:48 UTC ]
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Omar Sakr's 'epic, stunningly dirty' debut novel challenges macho heterosexual myths of Arab-Australian culture

The lives of queer Arab-Australian boys and men are vividly inhabited in award-winning poet Omar Sakr’s darkly comic debut novel, set in Western Sydney. Continue reading at The Conversation

[ The Conversation | 2022-02-28 19:12:38 UTC ]
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Announcing The Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award shortlist

Photo credit: Nigel DaviesSunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award marks the 30th anniversary with one of it's most decorated shortlists to date:• Irish novelist Megan Nolan for her darkly funny debut novel Acts of Desperation;• US-based writer Anna Beecher for her novel... Continue reading at British Council global

[ British Council global | 2022-02-16 14:40:41 UTC ]
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Toronto author's bestselling novel The Maid started as an idea on a napkin

Canadian author Nita Prose's debut novel The Maid became a New York Times and Canadian bestseller just a few weeks after its release on January 4. Continue reading at CBC

[ CBC | 2022-02-16 09:00:00 UTC ]
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What You Lose as a Daughter of the Iranian Revolution

In They Said They Wanted Revolution: A Memoir of My Parents, Iranian American author and Vice journalist Neda Toloui-Semnani reconstructed the story of her parents as young, leftist Iranian activists radicalized at Berkeley in the late ’60s and who came to see communism as the political answer... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-02-08 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Review: A debut novel of love and privilege that's made for TV

Coco Mellors' 'Cleopatra and Frankenstein' evokes a rich universe in multiple senses, but it feels engineered for a Netflix adaptation. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2022-02-04 14:00:54 UTC ]
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On The Lost Daughter, Vladimir, and What Happens When Women Have Had Enough

Early in Julia May Jonas’s searing debut novel Vladimir, the unnamed narrator, an “oldish white woman in her late fifties (the identity I am burdened with publicly presenting, to my general embarrassment)” finds herself in the last place anyone wants to be—a faculty meeting of a small New... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-02-02 09:50:43 UTC ]
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Review: The predator's wife: A dark debut novel with a #MeToo gender twist

Julia May Jonas' "Vladimir" is a thrilling "Lolita" update in which the deliciously wicked narrator is not the male abuser but his wife. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2022-02-01 14:00:41 UTC ]
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‘The Violin Conspiracy’ Is a Musical Thriller With Some Unexpected Notes

Brendan Slocumb’s debut novel is a musical bildungsroman cleverly contained within a literary thriller. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2022-02-01 10:00:07 UTC ]
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7 Novels About Family Curses

I have always held a keen interest toward the processes of myth formation and how beliefs about family identity are handed down through generations. My debut novel Defenestrate tells the story of a family in the midst of reckoning with superstition and inheritance, the long-held beliefs that can... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-01-31 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Genderqueer Short Stories About the Ways We Mythologize Our Identities

A nonbinary teenager on their way home from an eating -disorder treatment center who tries to convince a stranger she is not a vampire, an aspiring fashion designer/dry-cleaning worker who develops an obsession with a customer, a community of people with Hansen’s disease that welcome and attempt... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2022-01-27 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Europa pre-empts Yi's 'funny and bonkers' debut in two-book deal

Europa Editions UK has acquired Esther Yi's "incredible" debut novel Y/N in a two book pre-empt. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2022-01-19 12:54:14 UTC ]
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In ‘Last Resort,’ a Writer Turns a Friend’s Story Into a Smash Success

Andrew Lipstein’s entertaining debut novel mines comedy from an aspiring author’s ethically questionable path to publication. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2022-01-19 10:00:00 UTC ]
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Atlantic bags 'gorgeous' debut from Grudova in two-book deal

Atlantic Books has acquired Camilla Grudova's Children of Paradise, a "stunning" debut novel exploring the lives of cinema workers and sex. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2022-01-19 06:20:25 UTC ]
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Jessamine Chan’s Debut Calls Modern-Day Parenting Into Question

At Electric Literature, Diane Cooke speaks to Jessamine Chan about The School for Good Mothers, Chan’s incisive debut novel that revolves around how a young mother’s error lands her in a government reform program and at risk of losing custody of her child. They discuss one of Chan’s main... Continue reading at The Millions

[ The Millions | 2022-01-18 21:30:56 UTC ]
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