This year’s Desmond Elliott shortlist features all black writers.

The Desmond Elliott Prize is awarded annually to a writer whose first novel is written in English and published in the UK. Since 2007, it has supported and heralded new writers; the honor comes with a £10,000 prize. It’s heartening to see, especially right now, that this year the Desmond Elliott Prize has an all […] Continue reading at 'Literrary Hub'

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-06-02 17:58:53 UTC ]

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A love letter to European literature

Aged 15 I got a Christmas job at my local bookshop in Battersea so I could save to go interrailing. My parents’ bookshelves were brimming with mostly Black writers: Chinua Achebe, Buchi Emecheta, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Chester Himes, Terry McMillan, and I was surrounded by ‘consciousness’... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-12-30 21:25:59 UTC ]
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Jeremy O. Harris is donating a collection of plays by Black writers to libraries across the country.

On Late Night with Seth Meyers this week, Slave Play and Daddy playwright Jeremy O. Harris announced he is donating a collection of 15 plays by Black playwrights to 53 libraries and community centers across the United States—and is donating one such collection to Northwestern University in Seth... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-12-09 17:29:54 UTC ]
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Bloomsbury lands first novel in 48 years by Wole Soyinka

Bloomsbury is to publish Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth by Wole Soyinka, the Nobel Laureate's first novel in 48 years.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-12-09 16:14:16 UTC ]
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We’re getting a new Lauren Groff novel (about nuns!) in 2021.

Yes, the two-time National Book Award finalist and America’s most famous contemporary practitioner of the Joni Mitchell school of marriage fiction (think about it) is returning to the novel game. Riverhead Books announced earlier this afternoon that Matrix—Groff’s first novel since 2015’s... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-12-01 18:25:06 UTC ]
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William Heinemann lands 'masterpiece' from Richard Powers

William Heinemann will publish Bewilderment, Richard Powers' first novel since his Booker-shortlisted and Pulitzer Prize-winning The Overstory (William Heinemann, 2018).  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-24 19:27:03 UTC ]
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Attention: the principal from Buffy just wrote a novel. It’s called Illyria.

Hello and welcome to the very niche readership who understands what I am talking about and why I am excited and amused by this! The rumors (from this headline) are true: Principal Snyder, also known as Armin Shimerman, has recently published the first novel in a historical fantasy series about... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-17 15:43:11 UTC ]
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In ‘Here Is the Beehive,’ a philandering mother deals with the death of her lover

Sarah Crossan’s first novel for adults is, like some of her celebrated YA novels, written in verse. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-11-17 13:59:37 UTC ]
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“Hillbilly Elegy” Is the Last Thing America Needs in 2020

My first novel was released within six months of Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance’s memoir of Appalachian roots and a youth spent in a Rust Belt community with a dearth of jobs and resources. Vance’s book came out just before the 2016 election; mine was released just after. Donald Trump’s victory had... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2020-11-17 12:01:45 UTC ]
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7 of the Year’s Best Debut Novelists on Their First Literary Loves

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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FutureBook: Abbey calls for industry to expand what it considers 'normal'

The industry needs to expand what it considers "normal", breaking a current way of thinking which considers black authors niche and prevents books representing society, Black Writers' Guild co-founder Nels Abbey has said. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-16 16:45:55 UTC ]
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New Franzen trilogy announced in US

Jonathan Franzen is set to return in the US next year with Crossroads, the first novel in a new trilogy from the author. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-16 09:26:52 UTC ]
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New novel from Costa-shortlisted Beale to JMP

John Murray is publishing a new novel from Susan Beale, whose debut novel The Good Guy was shortlisted for 2016's Costa First Novel Award. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-05 19:51:11 UTC ]
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What Do We Owe Our Comunity in a Time of Crisis?

In her first novel published in 14 years, author Julia Alvarez explores grief, isolation, and sisterhood. Afterlife follows Antonia, a writer and retiring English professor, who has just lost her husband Sam. As she reimagines what her life will be without her husband, Antonia also struggles... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2020-11-02 12:00:33 UTC ]
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Exhausting the Vein of Realism: A Conversation with Lynne Sharon Schwartz

I DON’T KNOW when I first became aware of Lynne Sharon Schwartz’s writing, but it was probably sometime between 1980, when Raymond Carver lauded her on the basis of her National Book Award–nominated first novel Rough Strife, and 1989, when Sven Birkerts raved about Schwartz’s PEN/Faulkner... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-10-29 15:00:49 UTC ]
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Rituals of Housekeeping, Memories of Home: On Marilynne Robinson’s First Novel

In one of my earliest memories I am standing on a beach with my father and we are sculpting the shape of a woman’s body out of sand. In my mind it is winter—Avalon in the off-season—and I see us huddled in coats, wrapped in wool, bracing ourselves against the salt wind that blows in […] The post... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-10-29 08:50:18 UTC ]
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“Imagining More Transgender Visibility in Translation”: A Conversation with Ari Larissa Heinrich, by Veronica Esposito

Interviews Ari Larissa Heinrich / Photo by Tara Pixley Ari Larissa Heinrich is the translator of Qiu Miaojin’s Last Words from Montmartre (New York Review Books) and Chi Ta-wei’s The Membranes (forthcoming from Columbia University Press). They... Continue reading at World Literature Today

[ World Literature Today | 2020-10-27 22:09:23 UTC ]
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Wole Soyinka is publishing his first novel in five decades.

This one goes out to all the writers in the Year of our Lord 2020, as we all worry that our total inability to put a sentence together could turn into a lifetime of non-production: It’s never too late. Wole Soyinka, who in 1986 became the first person from sub-Saharan Africa to win a Nobel... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-10-27 19:39:22 UTC ]
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Unsafe Harbors: A Conversation with Nadia Terranova

ON JULY 2 of this year, I interviewed the author Nadia Terranova at her mother’s house in Santa Marinella, Italy, on a Zoom call from my apartment in Santa Monica, California. Back in 2015, I’d written a review of her first novel ​Gli anni al contrario (​The Years in Reverse​) and we’d met for... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-10-27 17:00:01 UTC ]
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Margaret Busby: how Britain's first black female publisher revolutionised literature – and never gave up

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... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2020-10-22 05:00:17 UTC ]
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Banks' first novel in a decade to No Exit Press

No Exit Press will publish Russell Banks’ new novel Foregone as a lead fiction title in June 2021. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-13 01:47:40 UTC ]
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