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 ]
A recent roundup of the ‘best books of 2021’ had every possible genre of novel – with the unsurprising exception of romanceIn the four months since my first novel came out, I’ve had the same conversation probably a dozen times.“What’s it about?” a well-meaning stranger will ask. “Well,” I’ll... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-12-05 15:25:24 UTC ]
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Academic Alex Hyde‘s first novel is a lyrical tale about two women named Violet during the Second World War. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-11-26 18:23:13 UTC ]
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The Nigerian writer explains the origins of his latest book’s title, why novels are harder to write than plays, and the masochistic pull of political activism. Continue reading at New Yorker
[ New Yorker | 2021-11-02 22:37:29 UTC ]
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News and Events (c) Rama, Cc-by-sa-2.0-fr NORMAN, OKLA. – World Literature Today, the University of Oklahoma’s award-winning magazine of international literature and culture, announced late Tuesday evening that Boubacar Boris Diop is the 27th... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-10-26 21:56:54 UTC ]
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This classic story of a single mother’s struggle against poverty, published in 1946, would become the first novel by a Black woman to sell a million copies. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-10-22 04:28:52 UTC ]
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The Chilean novelist was living in exile when her first novel was published in 1985. “In a way, I feel that I am working for my country, even if I don’t live there,” she told us. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-10-21 15:31:43 UTC ]
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This tale of Gilded Age New York City became, in 1921, the first novel by a woman to win the Pulitzer Prize. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-10-21 14:55:14 UTC ]
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Sequoia Nagamatsu’s bold first novel imagines how future humans might grapple with the fallout from climate change Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-10-15 04:56:32 UTC ]
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The Center for Fiction has just announced its shortlist for the 2021 First Novel Prize. The seven titles were selected from a longlist of twenty-seven debut novels, all published in the US between January 1 to December 21. The prize, first established in 2006, celebrates the best debut fiction... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-09-28 17:25:35 UTC ]
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Doerr’s first novel since winning a Pulitzer Prize for “All the Light We Cannot See” is full of people thinking big thoughts. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-09-28 12:00:00 UTC ]
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“Cloud Cuckoo Land,” Doerr’s first novel since “All the Light We Cannot See,” unites five characters over a millennium in a tribute to books and those who love them. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-09-24 09:00:04 UTC ]
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The Nigerian writer, the first sub-Saharan winner of the Nobel Prize, discusses 'Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth.' Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-09-23 13:00:36 UTC ]
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Simon & Schuster UK has acquired the 28th instalment in American author Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum bounty hunter series, alongside the first novel in a brand new series. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-09-22 17:14:06 UTC ]
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“Palmares” — her first novel since 1999’s “Mosquito” — is an emancipation story set in 17th-century Brazil. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-09-14 09:00:08 UTC ]
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With Harrow, her first novel in two decades, Joy Williams stares into the abyss. Continue reading at The Atlantic
[ The Atlantic | 2021-09-12 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Mantle has landed The Exhibitionist, Charlotte Mendelson's first novel since her 2013 Booker-longlisted work Almost English (Mantle). Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-09-07 21:02:28 UTC ]
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From the acclaimed author of novels and short stories, 'Harrow' is a magnificent, moving story about people picking up the pieces of apocalypse. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-09-07 13:00:01 UTC ]
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Atticus Lish was acclaimed for his first novel 'Preparation for the Next Life.' His second, 'The War for Gloria,' is more raw, painful and personal. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-09-02 13:00:39 UTC ]
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Book Reviews The National Memorial for Peace and Justice. Photo by Steven Taylor / Flickr The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers’s first novel, is textually connected to the works of Harriet Jacobs, Zora Neale Hurston,... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-08-18 20:12:10 UTC ]
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The country music superstar has teamed up with the novelist James Patterson to write Run, Rose, Run, which will be published in MarchFirst globally successful entertainer, then heroic sponsor of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine, and now novelist … Dolly Parton seems determined to prove that there... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-08-11 16:27:28 UTC ]
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