In her 20s, she set up her own company, publishing everyone from James Ellroy to the Worst Witch series, and changing Britain for the better, book by book There is a revealing story Margaret Busby tells, about the first novel she published. A family friend had bumped into a former US serviceman called Sam Greenlee. Greenlee said he had written a novel, rejected by 40 American publishers, a satirical thriller about the first African American man hired by the CIA but given a very visible non-job (the point being it was only to improve the CIA’s image). The man keeps his head down, learns about guerrilla warfare, then quits to become a freedom fighter in Chicago. Busby took it on, borrowing money so Greenlee could stay in London while the book was edited and, when it was about to be published, in 1969, she sent it to the Observer.The paper refused it – it didn’t extract fiction and certainly not black power novels. Busby sent it back, insisting the paper was wrong. It ran an extract, and The Spook Who Sat By the Door was translated into six languages and turned into a film. When this “parable of institutional racism”, as the New York Times described the film, opened in 1973, newspapers wondered if it would start race warfare. It closed early under FBI pressure, and was not reissued until 2004, then, nearly a decade later, added to the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2020-10-22 05:00:17 UTC ]
Author of The Horse Whisperer, the 1995 book that was turned into a popular film, starring and directed by Robert RedfordNicholas Evans, who has died aged 72 after a heart attack, was the unlikely author of the bestselling novel The Horse Whisperer (1995), which became a Robert Redford film.... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2022-08-16 17:09:25 UTC ]
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Many fiction writers wind up wishing they could redraft their early works. Akhil Sharma actually did. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-07-12 13:49:06 UTC ]
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Herzog's novel follows Hiroo Onoda, a real Japanese lieutenant who terrorized the Philippine villagers of Lubang Island with guerrilla tactics for 29 years after World War II’s conclusion. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2022-06-16 12:36:39 UTC ]
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'Tomb of Sand' is the first novel translated from an Indian language to win the award. Shree and Rockwell split the International Booker's £50,000 purse. The post In London, Geetanjali Shree and Daisy Rockwell Win the 2022 International Booker Prize appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2022-05-26 21:30:55 UTC ]
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Nina LaCour's first novel for adults, "Yerba Buena," follows a promising and complicated lesbian love story in the mold of Sarah Waters. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2022-05-26 13:00:31 UTC ]
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The adaptation of Sally Rooney’s first novel can’t quite bring tricky source material – repressed characters, digital communication – to lifeIt was always unlikely that Conversations with Friends, the new Hulu and BBC adaptation of Sally Rooney’s first novel, would be able to repeat the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2022-05-24 06:05:00 UTC ]
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Ali Smith's first novel since her seasonal quartet takes place in our pandemic-inflected world. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2022-05-04 11:00:00 UTC ]
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“Liarmouth” is about three generations of women in one family who plan to confront or kill one another. It also has a trampoline fun park. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-05-03 09:00:08 UTC ]
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Last year not only marked the twentieth publication anniversary of Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections, it also saw the release of his first novel in seven years, Crossroads. So it was only fitting that Picador would embark on a redesign of the author’s backlist. We spoke with Alex Merto, the art... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-03-17 08:54:52 UTC ]
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Lee Cole’s first novel is not only the story of a young man finding his vocation as a writer but also a wrenching examination of class differences Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2022-03-14 11:00:51 UTC ]
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Dolly Parton has written her first novel with the help of best-selling author James Patterson. Continue reading at BBC News
[ BBC News | 2022-03-10 00:01:14 UTC ]
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After previous seminars showcased work from Scotland and Wales, this year the focus is on writing from Northern Ireland. Chaired by novelist and non-fiction writer Glenn Patterson, director at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast – a familiar and popular name for British... Continue reading at British Council global
[ British Council global | 2022-02-16 12:14:57 UTC ]
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'Moon Witch, Spider King,' the second in Marlon James' incantatory Dark Star trilogy, flips the script on his first novel to tell a woman's side. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2022-02-15 14:00:10 UTC ]
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The memoirist Sarah Manguso’s first novel is about a young girl’s life in a small, snowy New England town. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-02-06 10:00:06 UTC ]
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At the risk of reigniting the Sally Rooney Discourse—today, Hulu and BBC Three released a few early images from their upcoming adaptation of Sally Rooney’s bestselling first novel Conversations With Friends, which will premiere sometime this spring. (If you somehow don’t know what this novel is... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-02-04 13:53:52 UTC ]
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On January 14, 1963, poet Sylvia Plath published her first novel in England under the pseudonym “Victoria Lucas.” The book had a positive but relatively quiet reception; only a few weeks after its publication, on February 11, Plath would die by suicide. It wasn’t published in the US until 1971,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-01-14 09:50:32 UTC ]
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Two decades ago, I wrote my very first novel while working at The Community Bookstore, an independent bookstore in Brooklyn, New York. That job enabled me to complete my book, not just because of the flexible hours, but because the other staffers were all aspiring writers, and many of our... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-01-12 09:50:45 UTC ]
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Book Reviews Jean Giono at his home, Le Paraïs, in Manosque, France, 1942 / Photo by André Zucca / Courtesy Les Amis de Jean Giono Written late in life, “Le Haut Pays” and “Camargue”—once again paired in the Archipelago Books edition of... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2022-01-11 21:02:53 UTC ]
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"To Paradise," by Hanya Yanagihara, is the author's first novel since "A Little Life" became a major literary event in 2015. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2022-01-11 13:00:00 UTC ]
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