What we're reading August 2019

Lowborn by Kerry HudsonKerry Hudson is best known for her award-winning fiction. Her first book, Tony Hogan Bought Me An Ice-cream Float Before He Stole My Ma, won the Scottish First Book Award and earned her a place on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list. Her latest book, Lowborn, is a non-fiction account of poverty in the UK today, told from a personal perspective. She recounts a journey across the UK, visiting the seven places she lived as a child. She describes memories of time in care as a looked after child, then with her young and struggling mother, and the all-encompassing poverty which pervaded her childhood, which is still sadly ever visible in the places she visits. Hudson is a masterful storyteller, and this is a brave and honest book that has much to say about the times and society we live in.Sinead Russel, Director LiteratureHend and the Soldiers by Badriah alBeshr, translated from the Arabic by Sanna Dhahir.This beautiful and troubling novel by Saudi novelist and journalist Badriah al Beshr charts a young woman’s childhood and early adulthood, from village life, social ascent during the economic boom, early marriage and divorce. While al Beshr rejects the tag of ‘feminist’ novelist, the picaresque story she weaves lucidly depicts the way gender roles are enforced with martial rigidity by the titular ‘soldiers’ - husband, brothers, extended family, neighbours, and local gossips, who stand guard at the gates of Hend’s world, armed with notions of... Continue reading at 'British Council global'

[ British Council global | 2019-08-30 08:51:45 UTC ]

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Sarah Moss’s Anxiety Chronicles

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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What’s Left Unsaid: How Ismail Kadare Escaped Suppression but Embraced the Style It Taught Him, by Peter Constantine

Essay Photo by Tyler Quiring / Unsplash Ismail Kadare has a remarkable quality of saying a great deal and with much clarity, but in an elusive, oblique, and allegorical way. Peter Constantine situates Kadare’s work in the long history of the... Continue reading at World Literature Today

[ World Literature Today | 2021-02-18 14:09:58 UTC ]
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Novelists are writing for TV more than ever. How it's changing the industry

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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Debut fiction did well in pandemic-hit 2020

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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National Book Award winner Barry Lopez dies at 75

Barry Lopez, who authored close to 20 books on natural history, including the National Book Award-winning Arctic Dreams (Vintage), has died at the age of 75. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-12-28 20:58:37 UTC ]
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“Romance Is Political”: The Unlikely Fundraising Effort That Raised $400,000 for the Georgia Senate Runoff Race

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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Words Without Borders in December: Female Sudanese Novelists ‘Caught in a Limbo’

'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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Craig Brown has won the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction.

The Baillie Gifford Prize, founded in 1999 following the end of the NCR Book Award for Nonfiction, celebrates the best non-fiction writing in the English language of the year. The honor comes with £50,000, and each of the shortlisted authors will receive £1,000. Previous winners include Hallie... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-24 19:57:04 UTC ]
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Douglas Stuart Wins the 2020 Booker Prize for ‘Shuggie Bain’

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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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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Colm Tóibín: How Rules of Craft Inhibit Creativity

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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Can a Video Game Express Modernist Values?

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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Crime novelists dish on writing about cops in a moment of reckoning

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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Here’s the shortlist for the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction.

The UK literary prizes are still coming in hot! Today, the Baillie Gifford Prize announced its 2020 shortlist. The award, founded in 1999 following the end of the NCR Book Award for Nonfiction, celebrates the best non-fiction writing in the English language of the year. The honor comes with... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-10-15 16:30:50 UTC ]
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Most diverse Booker prize shortlist ever is also almost all American

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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Here are the winners of the 2020 American Book Awards.

Three cheers for more exciting book news! Today, the Before Columbus Foundation announced the winners of the 41st-annual American Book Awards. The award, which has no categories or nominees, was created to recognize extraordinary literary achievement from the entire spectrum of America’s diverse... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-09-14 16:38:41 UTC ]
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Remember when famous writers used to shill for consumer products?

Ah, yes, the good old days: when novelists lent their faces and testimonials to advertisers hoping to sell tires, or a certain kind of beer, or fancy watches. It’s something you don’t see very much anymore, because we writers have become too principled to participate in advertising campaigns.... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-08-19 17:14:06 UTC ]
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With book tours scrapped, authors are finding new ways to connect with their readers

Chris Bohjalian, Mary Kay Andrews and other novelists have turned to Zoom and Facebook Live to find their audience. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-08-19 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Poets and novelists have been writing about life under COVID-19 for more than a century

From 'islands of pain' to the 'peril of exposure,' writers have captured the fear, emptiness and despair that characterize life during the current pandemic, writes a poet and English scholar. Continue reading at The Conversation

[ The Conversation | 2020-08-17 12:24:39 UTC ]
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Carty-Williams, O'Leary and Winterson shortlisted for Comedy Women in Print Prize

Novelists including Candice Carty-Williams, Beth O'Leary and Jeanette Winterson are in the running for the Comedy Women in Print Prize (CWIP). Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-08-16 13:06:20 UTC ]
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