It wasn’t just luck that steered the Guardian columnist to Oxford and into a media career ... She reflects on the subtle mechanics of class (and an early encounter with a naked future PM)Children know. They breathe it in early, for there’s no unknowing the difference between nannies, cleaners, below-stairs people and the family upstairs. Children are the go-betweens, one foot in each world, and yet they know very well from the earliest age where they belong, where their destiny lies or, to put it crudely, who pays whom. Tiny hands are steeped young in the essence of class and caste. In nursery school, in reception they see the Harry Potter sorting hat at work. They know. And all through school those fine gradations grow clearer, more precise, more consciously knowing, more shaming, more frightening. Good liberal parents teach their children to check their privilege – useful modern phrase – but it swells up like a bubo on the nose. There’s no hiding it.I can summon up the childhood shame at class embarrassments. Aged seven like me, Maureen, with her hair pinned sideways in a pink slide, lived in a pebble-dashed council house by the water tower. They were at the other end of Lindsey, more hamlet than village, half a mile down the road from my father’s pink thatched cottage set in the flat prairie lands of Suffolk, where I spent half my time, the other half in London, shuttling between divorced parents. I envied Maureen for what looked to me like a cheerful large family... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2023-05-20 12:00:56 UTC ]
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On this day in 1940, Maxine Hong Kingston was born in Stockton, CA. Kingston, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, took the literary world by storm with her seminal work The Woman Warrior (1976), which blends autobiography and mythology. The Woman Warrior, the winner of the 1976 National Book... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-10-27 16:42:53 UTC ]
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'The perspective of Indigenous peoples in the Indian and Pacific oceans' give 'Waves Across the South' distinction, say British Academy jurors. The post Sujit Sivasundaram Wins the £25,000 British Academy Book Prize appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2021-10-27 11:40:47 UTC ]
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Cambridge historian Sujit Sivasundaram's "truly powerful" book Waves Across the South: A New History of Revolution and Empire (William Collins) has won the £25,000 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-10-26 09:16:59 UTC ]
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In “The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven,” by Nathaniel Ian Miller, a young man swaps the daily grind for the unpeopled expanses of the Far North. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-10-26 09:00:03 UTC ]
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Like the complex Philippine history the book aims to depict, there is no single sentence that can sum up Albert Samaha’s Concepcion, especially when he renders that history through the lens of his own diasporic family, dating back to his ancestors’ first encounter with Europeans. Though... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-10-13 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Granta Magazine has opened submissions for the fifth edition of its Best of Young British Novelists list, to be released in spring 2023. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-10-13 08:19:00 UTC ]
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In “Those We Throw Away Are Diamonds,” Mondiant Dogon, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide, recounts a saga of horror, frustration and hope. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-10-12 09:00:07 UTC ]
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“Concepcion,” by Albert Samaha, combines the epic sweep of global history with an intimate family narrative. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-10-12 09:00:07 UTC ]
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The National Centre for Writing (NCW) and British Council has announced they will award more than £50,000 to collaborative projects from UK and international literature organisations and practitioners. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-10-12 00:28:03 UTC ]
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Jarrett Adams recounts his grueling path from a wrongful conviction to a law career. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-10-08 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Hannah Chukwu, assistant editor at PRH imprint Hamish Hamilton, has won the Arts & Media Rising Star award at this year's Black British Business Awards. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-10-07 21:27:46 UTC ]
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A systems outage which caused severe IT problems for Blackwell's is still affecting the bookseller's website a week after the problem first appeared, although recovery work is now underway. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-10-05 10:24:39 UTC ]
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A systems outage has caused severe IT problems for Blackwells, leaving the bookseller offline and its website unavailable for three days. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-09-30 14:23:27 UTC ]
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Scholastic reported higher sales and a smaller loss in the first quarter of fiscal 2022 compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2021, and while it said business is improving, it did point to some “headwinds” which all publishers are facing: rising costs and disruptions in the supply chain. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-09-24 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Launched a year ago in a collaboration between Penguin Random House and The Runnymede Trust, Lit in Colour seeks to make the books taught in classrooms more representative of modern life in Britain Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-09-17 18:08:18 UTC ]
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When I first meet a writer on the page, I pose a simple question: What don’t you ask permission for? In Yiyun Li’s case, the answer is her freedom. Individualism might seem inevitable for a woman who was born in China and whose early work responds to authoritarianism, but—reading Li—one senses... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2021-09-15 11:00:00 UTC ]
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The author of The Fortune Men will now compete with five other novelists from South Africa, Sri Lanka and the US for the 2021 awardAlex Clark explores how the Booker shortlist tunes in to the worries of our ageJust one British author has made the shortlist for this year’s Booker prize: Nadifa... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-09-14 15:25:06 UTC ]
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Thomas Mann may have written some very heavy books, but this biographical novel offers a more lighthearted portrait of the German writer. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-09-14 12:00:00 UTC ]
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On this day in 1935, the highly acclaimed poet Mary Oliver was born in Maple Heights, Ohio. Oliver, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1984 and later the National Book Award for Poetry in 1992, was by all accounts a private person who sought solace in the natural world. Throughout the course of her... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-09-10 15:24:16 UTC ]
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‘Jane Austen and Shelley in the Garden’ whisks readers to Cambridge, Wales and Venice, in the company of a delightful gang of scholars. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-09-10 12:00:00 UTC ]
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