Our annual pick of the most exciting debut fiction has previously tipped Sally Rooney and Louise Kennedy, Tom Crewe and Douglas Stuart. Here the class of 2024 tell us their storiesEach year since 2014, the Observer New Review’s writers and editors have read scores of forthcoming debut novels from authors based in the UK and Ireland in order to spotlight the best; here’s our pick of 2024. As ever, our only guide was the quality of the books in front of us. This year’s list includes industry-tipped titles snapped up by big-spending publishers, but also a canny acquisition from a small independent press. There’s a third book from someone already widely celebrated as a writer of short stories, and even a debut from an actual Observer journalist. These are simply the books we rated most – and we think you’ll love them too.In previous years, we led you to Douglas Stuart’s Booker-winning Shuggie Bain, Gail Honeyman’s global bestseller Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and Sheena Patel’s cult indie hit I’m a Fan. Last year’s picks continue to hoover up honours. Tom Crewe’s The New Life won the Orwell prize for fiction, while Michael Magee (Close to Home) won the Rooney prize, awarded to an outstanding Irish writer under 40. Both writers are on the shortlist for this month’s Nero debut fiction prize, along with Stephen Buoro, another of our 2023 picks.I’d take the washing up shifts no one else wanted so I could be at the back, jotting things downThere’s violence, but it’s about... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2024-01-14 07:00:20 UTC ]
I purposely avoided reading the works of other Palestinian American novelists making their ways into the world as I wrote Too Soon. When I looked up, I saw my book would be a part of a literary wave I had no idea I was riding, an artistic movement, that felt particular to the Palestinian... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2025-01-22 09:59:55 UTC ]
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Mavis Gallant wrote short stories full of brutal humor that examined the hell of other people. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2025-01-18 10:00:14 UTC ]
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Lou Mathews, author of "L.A. Breakdown" and "Shaky Town," is back with "Hollywoodski," a novelized collection of short stories about a faded screenwriter. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2025-01-17 11:00:42 UTC ]
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Richard Osman and Kate Mosse say plan to mine artistic works for data would destroy creative fieldsKate Mosse and Richard Osman have hit back at Labour’s plan to give artificial intelligence companies broad freedoms to mine artistic works for data, saying it could destroy growth in creative... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2025-01-14 17:52:02 UTC ]
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Mexican Writer Guadalupe Nettel to Headline Puterbaugh Festival at OU, by the Editors of WLT News and Events [email protected] Mon, 01/13/2025 - 09:20 Author photo by Germán NájeraThe 2025 Puterbaugh Lit Fest will return to the University of... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2025-01-13 15:20:12 UTC ]
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My first book had been something of an accident—two or three short stories that ran together unexpectedly, hit the 25,000-word mark, and found a publisher almost immediately. It happened so fast, I hadn’t really had time to think about what I was doing. Like a lot of indie presses in 2015, my... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2025-01-08 09:56:36 UTC ]
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The average income for a writer is now £7,000. For our sake and the country’s, we need financial assistanceThis week will be like A-level results week for authors, but with added economic jeopardy. For a good whack of the 100,000 writers and translators in the UK, finding out how many books they... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2025-01-05 08:00:15 UTC ]
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Writing fiction itself might be (and often is) considered an act of translation: from experience to language, from emotion to logic, from chaos to legibility. Perhaps it is a mere coincidence, or a stroke of good luck, then that these three fall debut novelists selected for our craft series each... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2024-12-17 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Here are five 2025 mystery releases to have on your radar, from middle grade dark academia to short stories with sleuthing Jesuit priests. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2024-12-09 13:30:00 UTC ]
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Language of White Bones: The Secrets of Han Kang’s Poetic Prose, by Eun-Gwi Chung Essay [email protected] Thu, 12/05/2024 - 15:23 Photo of Han Kang by Paik Dahuim / Courtesy of Natur & KulturLike a clutch of words strewn over white... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2024-12-05 21:23:24 UTC ]
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I wrote What It’s Like in Words in my dressing room in the St Martin’s theatre in the West End whilst playing Miss Casewell in The Mousetrap, and over nine months and approximately 300 shows it occurred to me how similar the processes of writing and acting are. They may appear binary forms of... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-12-04 09:55:59 UTC ]
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Late in 1933, Dylan Thomas started writing a new short story. “The theme of the story I dreamed in a nightmare,” he wrote to a friend. “If successful, if the words fit to the thoughts, it will be one of the most ghastly short stories ever written.” Thomas was possessed, in part, by rejection.... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-10-31 08:56:14 UTC ]
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Earlier this May, an Esquire article by Kate Dwyer called “Why Are Debut Novels Failing to Launch?” channeled the fear of debut novelists everywhere: What happens if no one buys my book? Book sales are an important way for editors and agents to gauge whether to invest in an author. If her first... Continue reading at The Millions
[ The Millions | 2024-10-16 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Roger Allen: Translating Arabic and the Art of Translation, by Jonas Elbousty Interviews [email protected] Mon, 10/14/2024 - 14:56 Roger Allen was the first person to obtain a doctorate in modern Arabic literature at the University of Oxford. After... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2024-10-14 19:56:44 UTC ]
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Breaking Bourgeois Taboos in Cairo: Ihsan Abdel Quddous’s A Nose and Three Eyes, by Gretchen McCullough Book Reviews [email protected] Mon, 10/14/2024 - 14:18 Five or six years ago, I was reading Ihsan Abdel Quddous (1919–1990) with my Arabic... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2024-10-14 19:18:43 UTC ]
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With earnings having dropped by 60%, it is harder than ever to keep going as a writer – even if your work gets rave reviewsThe 2022 publication of A Hunger, Ross Raisin’s fourth novel, was his “lowest moment”, the 45-year-old author says. “It was a deflating experience.”The book received... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-10-14 15:35:55 UTC ]
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Han Kang’s poetry and short stories are just as innovative and important as her novels. Continue reading at The Conversation
[ The Conversation | 2024-10-10 17:11:35 UTC ]
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Every time I read Jamie Quatro’s fiction—from her debut collection I Want to Show You More, to her 2018 novel Fire Sermon, to her short stories in the New Yorker—I experience the same edge-of-my-seat pleasure. Quatro’s characters are as alive as flesh-and-blood people; the Southern landscape... Continue reading at The Millions
[ The Millions | 2024-10-03 12:00:00 UTC ]
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In 1993, I published my first decent story in a literary journal and a few months later received a letter from an agent whose name I recognized. I’d written short stories in college classes, sent them off, and typically the only thing that came back was a rejection, housed in the... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2024-10-01 11:10:00 UTC ]
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