This excellent cradle-to-grave biography of a much loved novelist who goes in and out of fashion captures her alarming habits and tormented love affairsIn 1971 the author Barbara Pym was at her day job at the International African Institute when she noticed “Mr C” laboriously attacking his lunchtime sandwich with a knife and fork. Pym made a mental note of the detail before asking herself ruefully, “Oh why can’t I write about things like that any more – why is this kind of thing no longer acceptable?” Ten years earlier, Jonathan Cape had dumped her after her sixth book on the grounds that her brand of anthropological observation of English social manners was old lady-ish, dull and didn’t sell. As an extra humiliation, no other publishing house had been interested in picking up Miss Pym: books built on “the daily round of trivial things” could hardly compete with Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal or, if you were feeling fancy, Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. Jonathan Cape had even published John Lennon (Pym liked the Beatles, but still). Clearly there was no place in contemporary literature for Mr C and his oddly formal way with a sandwich.There is nothing unusual about major minor novelists having a disappointing and disproportionate decline, followed by a posthumous flowering in reputation and sales. What’s unusual about Pym is that her phoenix moment came while she was still alive. In 1977 the Times Literary Supplement asked well-known... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2021-04-08 06:30:07 UTC ]
MOST NOVELISTS WHO want to embed sophisticated ideas in their fiction resort to long stretches of dialogue. In the traditional philosophical novel, loquacious characters are the vehicles for politics or principles. Sarah Moss is different. She favors realism and interiority. In each of her... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2021-02-21 13:30:51 UTC ]
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Over the past 20 years, industry shifts have funneled more novelists into TV rooms than ever. It's salutary in many ways — beginning with health insurance. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-02-11 15:00:05 UTC ]
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Jonathan Cape has acquired two new books by Katie Kitamura, including her "taut and electrifying" novel Intimacies, about an interpreter pulled into "explosive political fires". Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-02-08 20:29:15 UTC ]
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Debut novelists performed solidly last year, despite widespread fears that they would lose out to more established authors due to 2020's pandemic-hit publishing schedules. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-01-14 13:16:53 UTC ]
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Jonathan Cape has won a 10-publisher auction for Fire Rush, the “phenomenal” debut novel by Jacqueline Crooks. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-12-09 10:11:08 UTC ]
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Courtney Milan explains how a group of romance novelists rallied behind one of their own: Stacey Abrams. Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2020-12-07 19:30:17 UTC ]
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'Not being Arab nor African enough,' translator Sawad Hussain writes, female writers aren't supported by Sudan's 'literary ecosystem.' The post Words Without Borders in December: Female Sudanese Novelists ‘Caught in a Limbo’ appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2020-12-02 16:34:21 UTC ]
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Vintage imprint Jonathan Cape will publish Checkout 19 by Claire-Louise Bennett, author of Pond (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2015). Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-30 16:16:38 UTC ]
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One of four debut novelists among the six writers shortlisted this year, Stuart wins for 'Shuggie Bain,' also a National Book Award finalist. The post Douglas Stuart Wins the 2020 Booker Prize for ‘Shuggie Bain’ appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2020-11-19 20:23:21 UTC ]
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Jonathan Cape has triumphed in a nine-publisher auction for a “fly-on-the-padded-wall” debut from junior psychiatrist and comedy writer Benji Waterhouse. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-19 11:03:07 UTC ]
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Every year, we ask The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize Finalists to reminisce about the first book they fell in love with. This year, we asked Finalists to reflect not just on the first story that stole their heart, but the story that seeded curiosity and empathy for the plight of others... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-17 09:48:30 UTC ]
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Colm Tóibín gives the third installment to the Words Ireland Lecture Series. This modern master discusses the craft of James Joyce—and the idea of craft itself. Is craft a concept more suited to poetry? Could strict ideas around craft actually be a hindrance to novelists and short story writers?... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-04 09:48:28 UTC ]
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Jonathan Cape has snapped up an “exquisite” memoir about the challenges facing gay men today from acclaimed poet and Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year shortlistee Seán Hewitt. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-03 07:03:12 UTC ]
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AS AN EXPRESSIVE MEDIUM, video games have a strange way of reducing central concepts of modernist art and theory to basic operational elements. The technical specifications of “point of view” that have preoccupied novelists since the turn of the 20th century are crudely literalized within game... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-10-31 17:00:02 UTC ]
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Writers Rachel Howzell Hall, Attica Locke and Ivy Pochoda talked with Times reporter James Queally for a 2020 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books event. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-10-24 16:06:42 UTC ]
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Booker prize founder and publisher of some of the greats of 20th-century fictionTom Maschler, publisher and managing director of Jonathan Cape and the architect of the Booker prize for fiction, has died aged 87. A glamorous, perma-tanned figure with aquiline features and unruly hair, who dressed... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-10-16 17:49:02 UTC ]
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Prize-winning writer Kapka Kassabova is moving to Jonathan Cape in a two-book deal, with first title, Elixir, exploring the human hunger for healing and a search for a cure. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-09-24 14:09:10 UTC ]
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Jonathan Cape has acquired Swedish musician Neneh Cherry’s memoir, A Thousand Threads, in a 14-way auction. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-09-16 11:56:22 UTC ]
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With no room for Hilary Mantel’s conclusion to her Wolf Hall trilogy, the six finalists also include four debutsHilary Mantel will not win a third Booker prize with the final novel in her Thomas Cromwell trilogy, after American writers made a near clean sweep of this year’s shortlist.With four... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-09-15 12:21:07 UTC ]
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Vintage imprint Jonathan Cape will publish Sapiens: A Graphic History, a "radical reworking" in graphic novel style of Yuval Noah Harari's bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-09-02 08:54:07 UTC ]
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