He starred in Peep Show, Green Wing and Wonka – and his first novel won an award. Now the star is making operas with 64 homeless people. Not bad going for someone who was written off by his teachersPaterson Joseph is, by his own admission, an unlikely opera librettist. He had turned 50 by the time he got round to going to one, and only went because he was in it, as the “crazy” voice of God in Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. “It’s not my world,” says the actor. But therein lies part of his mission: as a black Londoner written off by the school system, his life was transformed by the goldmine he discovered while truanting down at his local library.One of his discoveries, as “a melancholy teen”, was Pushkin’s verse novel Eugene Onegin. “I remember getting it out of the library,” he says, “just because it was a small book. And I started reading this poem out loud, at night in my bedroom. And I laughed – but I was also frightened and frustrated, weeping at the tragedy of it. When I closed the book, it was dawn.” Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2024-05-27 04:00:13 UTC ]
What do Brit Bennett, Megan Thee Stallion, and Sascha Baron Cohen all have in common? They’ve all joined The Weeknd in being named Entertainment Weekly’s 2020 Entertainers of the Year. Though I’ve loved Bennett since her 2017 debut novel The Mothers, this well-deserved recognition comes on the... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-12-03 16:03:02 UTC ]
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Yes, the two-time National Book Award finalist and America’s most famous contemporary practitioner of the Joni Mitchell school of marriage fiction (think about it) is returning to the novel game. Riverhead Books announced earlier this afternoon that Matrix—Groff’s first novel since 2015’s... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-12-01 18:25:06 UTC ]
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In Fariha Róisín’s debut novel Like a Bird, protagonist Taylia Chatterjee lives a privileged life on Manhattan’s Upper West Side with her sister Alyssa. Alyssa often receives preferential treatment from their liberal, overbearing parents—a white Jewish mom, a Hindu Bengali dad. Taylia is... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-12-01 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Han’s debut novel follows a Chinese couple reaching for the American Dream while raising their children in Texas. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-11-30 16:27:21 UTC ]
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The debut novel from former Daunt Books bookseller Ben Hinshaw will be published by Viking in spring 2022. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-25 14:18:40 UTC ]
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William Heinemann will publish Bewilderment, Richard Powers' first novel since his Booker-shortlisted and Pulitzer Prize-winning The Overstory (William Heinemann, 2018). Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-24 19:27:03 UTC ]
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Last week, Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain was announced this year’s Booker Prize winner. It’s no small feat for any writer, but what makes this win so spectacular is the fact that Shuggie Bain is a debut novel. (It’s only the fifth debut novel to win in the Booker’s 51-year-old history.) During... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-24 09:51:08 UTC ]
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The Shuggie Bain author grew up in a culture that discouraged boys from reading. His debut novel just won the Booker Prize. The post Douglas Stuart on Writing in Secret appeared first on The Millions. Continue reading at The Millions
[ The Millions | 2020-11-20 21:30:09 UTC ]
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Hello and welcome to the very niche readership who understands what I am talking about and why I am excited and amused by this! The rumors (from this headline) are true: Principal Snyder, also known as Armin Shimerman, has recently published the first novel in a historical fantasy series about... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-17 15:43:11 UTC ]
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Sarah Crossan’s first novel for adults is, like some of her celebrated YA novels, written in verse. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-11-17 13:59:37 UTC ]
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My first novel was released within six months of Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance’s memoir of Appalachian roots and a youth spent in a Rust Belt community with a dearth of jobs and resources. Vance’s book came out just before the 2016 election; mine was released just after. Donald Trump’s victory had... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-11-17 12:01:45 UTC ]
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Every year, we ask The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize Finalists to reminisce about the first book they fell in love with. This year, we asked Finalists to reflect not just on the first story that stole their heart, but the story that seeded curiosity and empathy for the plight of others... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-17 09:48:30 UTC ]
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Jonathan Franzen is set to return in the US next year with Crossroads, the first novel in a new trilogy from the author. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-16 09:26:52 UTC ]
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It was announced earlier today that MGM is teaming with Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment, Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films, and director Kamilah Forbes on a film adaptation of National Book Award-winner Ta-Nehisi Coates’ 2019 bestselling novel, The Water Dancer. Coates’ debut novel tells the story of... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-11 15:33:22 UTC ]
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John Murray is publishing a new novel from Susan Beale, whose debut novel The Good Guy was shortlisted for 2016's Costa First Novel Award. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-05 19:51:11 UTC ]
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Yang’s debut novel owes a debt to Edith Wharton’s “The House of Mirth,” though Ivy Lin is no Lily Bart. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-11-05 16:42:29 UTC ]
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‘She knew it was a trick of the lonely to favour the rude to the simply unmoved; that the loneliest thing in these villages and in this most tucked-away of professions was to elicit no response at all.’ Marina Kemp’s debut novel Nightingale is shortlisted for the 2020 Young Writer of the Year... Continue reading at Granta
[ Granta | 2020-11-05 11:53:49 UTC ]
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Richard Osman's debut crime novel The Thursday Murder Club (Viking) has been named W H Smith's Book of the Year for 2020. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-05 01:31:10 UTC ]
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Yan's debut novel overturns the tropes of the romance novel in this story about an immigrant's doomed pursuit of marriage and the American dream. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-11-02 15:00:30 UTC ]
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In her first novel published in 14 years, author Julia Alvarez explores grief, isolation, and sisterhood. Afterlife follows Antonia, a writer and retiring English professor, who has just lost her husband Sam. As she reimagines what her life will be without her husband, Antonia also struggles... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2020-11-02 12:00:33 UTC ]
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