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 ]
The host of NPR's "Pop Culture Happy Hour" podcast has written her debut novel, the romantic comedy "Evvie Drake Starts Over." Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2019-06-19 22:05:02 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Hachette Books Ireland has snapped up an "incredible" debut novel by Irish journalist Sophie White about the world of Instagram influencers. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-06-17 14:38:06 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Raymond Antrobus and 70-year-old debut novelist Anne Youngson are among the winners of this year's £100,000 Society of Authors' Awards. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-06-17 02:12:28 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Taffy Brodesser-Akner's debut novel is a divorce novel wrapped around a mystery: What are women really up to? Continue reading at The Huffington Post
[ The Huffington Post | 2019-06-16 12:00:06 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Zaffre has bagged an "unbelievably timely" debut novel from Helly Acton, which has already been optioned for TV, in a two-book deal. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-06-14 12:23:54 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Ocean Vuong reads from his stunning debut novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2019-06-14 12:00:01 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Allen & Unwin will publish the debut novel by Sophie Hardcastle, a research assistant at Oxford University, exploring “the female ill-treatment at the hands of men”. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-06-13 21:53:54 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Picador has pre-empted a “razor-sharp, brutal and darkly comic” debut novel from recent NYU graduate Raven Leilani about a black millennial woman pulled into a suburban white couple’s life. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-06-13 21:43:52 UTC ]
More news stories like this
“We call them Bunnies because that is what they call each other,” explains Samantha Heather Mackey, the narrator of Mona Awad’s new novel, “Bunny.” “Seriously. Bunny. … Bunny, I love you. I love you, Bunny.” Awad does so many things right in “Bunny,” her follow-up to her 2016 debut novel,... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-06-11 15:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Her Body and Other Parties, by Carmen Maria Machado I've absolutely loved this collection of short stories, which floats between the weird and the queer, passing horror, black comedy and feminism along the way. Doubles and others are especially important: a wife enters her wife’s dream when they... Continue reading at British Council global
[ British Council global | 2019-04-11 08:49:28 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Indonesia is the country of focus at the London Book Fair this year and recently at Frankfurt - to what extent do you think Indonesian literature is finally having it's moment in the spotlight? I cannot say for certain what these one-off ‘spotlights’ on Indonesian literature would mean for... Continue reading at British Council global
[ British Council global | 2019-02-08 10:06:53 UTC ]
More news stories like this