What We're Reading - Lockdown Bank Holiday Edition

Whether delving into chunky historical narratives or listening to short story podcasts, we’ve all been approaching reading differently during lockdown. Our reading habits can take us back in time, allow us to examine our present, or give us hope for the future. In time for the May bank holiday weekend, the Literature team shares what they’ve been reading lately.  You People by Nikita LalwaniNikita Lalwani's You People follows Nia, a 19-year-old British-Indian girl, and Shan, a Tamil refugee, who work at a London pizzeria and are both in thrall – in different ways – to the restaurant's enigmatic manager Tuli. Initially, Nia and Shan don't have much in common, and their differing views of Tuli reflect this. Nia wants to escape her troubled family, while Shan longs to bring his wife and child to the UK; Nia, having been sent down from Oxford, wants to escape the bonds of the establishment, while Shan longs for Britain's elite to grant him indefinite leave to remain. To Nia, Tuli is mercurial and charming, glimpsed offering deals and generous loans; from Shan's perspective, he's to be courted and obeyed, able to use his influence and wealth to bring Shan's family to safety.Things change when Nia voluntarily enters a world that Shan can’t escape, and You People uses a gripping, thriller-like structure to reflect this. But even as the jaws of the trap close around them, and the protagonists rely on quick thinking and deduction to survive, the novel creates a larger tension from... Continue reading at 'British Council global'

[ British Council global | 2020-05-07 13:58:54 UTC ]

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What We're Reading – April 2019

Her Body and Other Parties, by Carmen Maria Machado I've absolutely loved this collection of short stories, which floats between the weird and the queer, passing horror, black comedy and feminism along the way. Doubles and others are especially important: a wife enters her wife’s dream when they... Continue reading at British Council global

[ British Council global | 2019-04-11 08:49:28 UTC ]
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Art Connects Us: Sarah Odedina

As a recipient of the Arts Connects Us Grant I travelled to Ghana and Sierra Leone to meet with writers and publishing professionals working in the field of books for young readers to foster creative and collaborative exchanges between those contacts and publishing professionals and readers in... Continue reading at British Council global

[ British Council global | 2019-03-19 11:10:28 UTC ]
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INDONESIA FOCUS: Q+A Nirwan Dewanto

You started writing early in your high school days, what were you writing about most back then?I think it is exaggerating to say I started writing at high school. I was already writing, but it was mainly journaling, which was not for public consumption. There was a poem (about a tree in the... Continue reading at British Council global

[ British Council global | 2019-03-15 11:15:36 UTC ]
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Potter lands Eisenberg short stories in first Europa buy

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Podcasts and writing workshops scoop RSL Literature Matters Awards

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Picador lands new SF story collection from Chiang

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INDONESIA FOCUS: Q+A Intan Paramaditha

Intan Paramaditha will be appearing alongside Syd Moore to discuss re-writing old stories and myths with a contemporary, feminist slant at the Essex Book Festival on 15 March 2019 at 19.00. Find out more and book tickets here.   What’s exciting about Indonesian literature at the moment, and... Continue reading at British Council global

[ British Council global | 2019-02-21 11:15:36 UTC ]
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Q&A: Karen Bender on her short stories that confront hot-button issues

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INDONESIA FOCUS: Q+A Laksmi Pamuntjak

Indonesia is the country of focus at the London Book Fair this year and recently at Frankfurt - to what extent do you think Indonesian literature is finally having it's moment in the spotlight? I cannot say for certain what these one-off ‘spotlights’ on Indonesian literature would mean for... Continue reading at British Council global

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Audible brings A.S. Byatt novels and stories to audio for first time

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Peet's last book snapped up for TV

Late children’s author Mal Peet's final book, The Murdstone Trilogy (David Fickling Books), will be adapted for TV by the dramatist behind Hilary Mantel’s "Wolf Hall" for a newly formed production company. Continue reading at The Bookseller

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Myriad acquires Chiew's debut short story collection

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International Prize for Arabic Fiction Shortlist Announcement

The shortlist for the 2019 International Prize for Arabic Fiction was announced today at the El-Hakawati Palestinian National Theatre in East Jerusalem. The IPAF - often referred to as the ‘Arabic Booker’ - is an annual literary prize for prose fiction, which encourages the readership of... Continue reading at British Council global

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Walliams targets 7+ readers with new ‘daft story’

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Comma scoops Constantine's fifth short story collection

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When Robot and Crow Saved East St. Louis

Each month in 2018, Future Tense Fiction—a series of short stories from Future Tense and ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination about how technology and science will change our lives—will publish a story on a theme. The theme for October–December 2018: Work. Continue reading at Slate

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Morpurgo, James and Byatt join forces with London bookshops to raise money for homeless

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[ The Bookseller | 2018-12-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Bookseller | 2018-11-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Beatles biographer Philip Norman: 'Yoko was waiting for me – with two lawyers'

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Newly discovered stories of Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz to Saqi

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[ The Bookseller | 2018-11-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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