Jonathan Escoffery: ‘I was trying to write novels aged nine’

The If I Survive You author on the suspense of the Booker ceremony, Americans’ warped view of the Caribbean, and writing his next novel on the roadJonathan Escoffery, 43, was born in Texas and lives in Oakland, California. His debut, If I Survive You, about a second-generation Jamaican in Miami, where Escoffery grew up, was shortlisted for last year’s Booker and is currently on the shortlist of the Gordon Burn prize, announced on 7 March. The novelist Rumaan Alam has called it “a reminder of what fiction can do... It’s truly a feat that a book of short stories tackling such big stuff – family, love, violence, race – could be so damn funny.”What did it mean to be shortlisted for the Booker prize?It felt like I’d arrived in the UK for the first time, even though the book had been out for months. I’d already connected with readers outside the US because the book is partly set in Jamaica and talks about the African-Caribbean diaspora, but suddenly I was hearing from people in India and Australia. I’d watched the ceremony when Marlon James won with A Brief History of Seven Killings in 2015. I loved what that book did for Jamaica and to see it honoured in such a massive way was beautiful. I felt like that novel was capturing a history of tumultuous politics and rising crime I’d grown up hearing in a very matter of fact way from my parents: “This is what was happening in the 70s, this is why we left.” Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2024-01-27 18:00:42 UTC ]
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Tom Hanks announces ‘wildly ambitious’ first novel

The Making of Another Motion Picture Masterpiece spans 80 years and is said to be ‘thoughtful, poignant and hugely entertaining’Oscar winner Tom Hanks’s debut novel has been announced, and is due out next year. The book, Hanks’s second foray into fiction – he published a short story collection... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2022-09-27 14:01:40 UTC ]
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Review: The follow-up to Namwali Serpell's debut novel is less grand — and better for it

Critics raved over 'The Old Drift,' Namwali Serpell's epic debut novel. Our critic prefers her more difficult, intimate follow-up, 'The Furrows.' Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2022-09-27 13:00:37 UTC ]
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It's Never Too Late: Seven Authors on Making Their YA Debuts After Age 50

These first-time authors are out to prove that life experience and hindsight are advantages when it comes to crafting riveting stories for teens. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-09-27 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Hilary Mantel, celebrated author of Wolf Hall, dies aged 70

‘She saw and felt things us ordinary mortals missed,’ her agent says of Booker prize-winning author who died on Thursday• Hilary Mantel remembered: ‘She was the queen of literature’• ‘The pen is in our hands. A happy ending is ours to write’: Hilary Mantel in her own wordsThe Booker... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2022-09-23 11:29:23 UTC ]
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Mario Vargas Llosa on Looking Back, a Novel of Never-Ending War That Resists Easy Answers

Translated by Charlotte Whittle The novel, Looking Back by Colombian author Juan Gabriel Vázquez, which has won a major literary prize in Mexico, will have many readers. It is one of the great novels to have been written in Spanish and its author tells us that the events it portrays also... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-09-23 08:52:19 UTC ]
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Jonathan Franzen: What Happens If We No Longer Have Bookstore Readings?

Books are written in solitude, but writers do some of their finest work with crowds—in public talks, interviews, and events. The best moments from those strange, dramatic interactions often go missing, however: either they’re never recorded, or nobody will ever find the recordings. Fortunately,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-09-14 09:05:43 UTC ]
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John Green’s First Novel May Be Banned At His Old School

"Please don't ban my books in my hometown," John Green concluded in the TikTok. "It's really upsetting for my mom." Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2022-09-13 13:44:10 UTC ]
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The women in ‘Killers of a Certain Age’ are no coastal grandmothers

In Deanna Raybourn’s thriller “Killers of a Certain Age” four assassins on the brink of retirement get a chance to show their stuff one more time Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2022-09-13 12:00:30 UTC ]
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Kate Beaton on Creating the Best Graphic Novel of 2022

The cartoonist’s Ducks is a devastating memoir about life in the oil sands of northern Alberta, Canada. Continue reading at Wired

[ Wired | 2022-09-13 11:00:00 UTC ]
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She Writes Press and SparkPress: Hybrids That Lead by Example

When these sister hybrid houses merge their knowledge and expertise, their authors—and the entire publishing industry—benefit. (Sponsored) Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-09-11 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Rabih Alameddine on Only Writing When You Have Something to Say

Rabih Alameddine’s The Wrong End of the Telescope is out now in paperback from Grove Atlantic, so we asked him about writer’s block, the best books to re-read, and procrastinating. * How do you tackle writer’s block? I don’t, nor do I wish to anymore. Not unless I have an external deadline,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-09-09 08:53:14 UTC ]
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If You Loved That Novel, Try This Nonfiction Book

If you loved these popular novels, try picking up a nonfiction book that pairs perfectly with it, like The Martian and Packing for Mars. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2022-09-08 10:38:00 UTC ]
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The Novel That Made Karen Armstrong Quit Her Reading Group

“There was an upsetting aura of righteousness in the room” when the group read Iris Murdoch’s “A Fairly Honourable Defeat,” says the religious scholar, whose latest book is “Sacred Nature.” “It did not deserve this response. I have never returned.” Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2022-09-08 09:00:11 UTC ]
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Review: Comics icon Grant Morrison's debut novel is a marvel of Oedipal camp

'Luda,' debut novel by veteran comics writer Grant Morrison, is a camp spectacular in which patriarchy is defined as a kind of magical Oedipal drag. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2022-09-02 15:30:56 UTC ]
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All Things Are Possible: Mario Vargas Llosa on the Eternal Youth of Flaubert’s Writing

Translated by Charlotte Whittle At some point in the last century, I arrived in Paris and that very day bought a copy of Madame Bovary in a bookstore called Joie de Vivre in the Latin Quarter. I stayed up nearly all night reading it and by dawn I knew what kind of writer I wanted […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-08-29 08:52:14 UTC ]
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Here are the songs Bob Dylan is writing about in his forthcoming book on “modern song.”

As some of you may already know (and sure, some of you may not care) Bob Dylan is publishing a book this November about his “philosophy of modern song” called… The Philosophy of Modern Song. If you are among those who do care (like me) the table of contents of the Nobel laureate’s foray into […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2022-08-26 15:37:43 UTC ]
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Coding and Creative Writing Have More in Common Than You Think

While other future novelists were discussing iambic pentameter and leitmotifs, Gina Chen immersed herself in computer science. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2022-08-25 09:00:11 UTC ]
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Chateaubriand on Writing Memoir between Two Societies

“It was an ‘I‘ of early days long gone who lived in these places, and that ‘I’ has already succumbed, for our days die before us.” Continue reading at The Paris Review

[ The Paris Review | 2022-08-22 15:42:39 UTC ]
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Op-Ed: How an antitrust trial could reshape the books we read — and who writes them

The proposed merger of Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster could lead to fewer voices — including marginalized voices — being published. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2022-08-18 10:09:48 UTC ]
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