Ashley Hickson-Lovence, Abir Mukherjee, Courttia Newland, Guy Gunaratne, Paul Mendez and Okechukwu Nzelu on why British writers of colour are left out of the conversationAfter this week’s Booker prize longlist was announced, the Times asked “Where are the new male hotshot novelists?” I was expecting to see the article discussing the brilliant fiction by men, in particular men of colour, being written at the moment, but they were only mentioned in passing. It seemed the hotshot British male novelists the Times was looking for were really British, male and white.It’s exhausting that one of the reasons offered for the dearth of these voices is the industry’s efforts to “introduce more racial diversity to their lists”, posing diversity and inclusion once again as pitting people against each other. Ask any Black or Brown writer if they’re the reason white men are being shut out of the books world and they’ll probably shout, because the alternative is crying. In 2016, only one debut novel from a Black British male author was published in the UK. As the Black Writers’ Guild says, despite efforts across the industry, change isn’t happening fast enough.Rainbow Milk by Paul Mendez is published by Dialogue BooksIn Our Mad and Furious City by Guy Gunaratne is published by Tinder PressA River Called Time by Courttia Newland will be published by Canongate in January 2021The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney by Okechukwu Nzelu is published by Dialogue BooksThe 392 by Ashley Hickson-Lovence... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2020-07-31 14:10:18 UTC ]
Good Girl—the debut novel by award-winning poet Aria Aber—follows nineteen-year-old Nila as she becomes charmed in a Berlin club and falls manically in love with Marlowe, an older brooding American writer. Raised by Afghan refugees, Nila’s childhood remains haunted by the shadows of exile while... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2025-01-24 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
I purposely avoided reading the works of other Palestinian American novelists making their ways into the world as I wrote Too Soon. When I looked up, I saw my book would be a part of a literary wave I had no idea I was riding, an artistic movement, that felt particular to the Palestinian... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2025-01-22 09:59:55 UTC ]
More news stories like this
“Those people. My whole existence, neatly packed into one demonstrative adjective,” says Nila, the protagonist of Aria Aber’s pulsing debut novel Good Girl. Nila was born in Berlin, “inside its ghetto-heart, as a small, wide-eyed rat, in the months after reunification.” As these quotations show,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2025-01-16 09:56:24 UTC ]
More news stories like this
A debut novel about an Afghan German party girl in Berlin shows that there are plenty of ways to dramatize the immigrant experience. Continue reading at The Atlantic
[ The Atlantic | 2025-01-15 14:30:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Richard Osman and Kate Mosse say plan to mine artistic works for data would destroy creative fieldsKate Mosse and Richard Osman have hit back at Labour’s plan to give artificial intelligence companies broad freedoms to mine artistic works for data, saying it could destroy growth in creative... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2025-01-14 17:52:02 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Aria Aber’s exciting debut novel finds the daughter of an Afghan refugee sidestepping disapproval and racism as she dives into Berlin’s nightworld. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2025-01-13 10:00:16 UTC ]
More news stories like this
The average income for a writer is now £7,000. For our sake and the country’s, we need financial assistanceThis week will be like A-level results week for authors, but with added economic jeopardy. For a good whack of the 100,000 writers and translators in the UK, finding out how many books they... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2025-01-05 08:00:15 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Writing fiction itself might be (and often is) considered an act of translation: from experience to language, from emotion to logic, from chaos to legibility. Perhaps it is a mere coincidence, or a stroke of good luck, then that these three fall debut novelists selected for our craft series each... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2024-12-17 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Omar Khalifah’s debut novel resists the demand placed on those who have experienced historical atrocities to tell their stories. Continue reading at The Atlantic
[ The Atlantic | 2024-12-05 16:22:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
I wrote What It’s Like in Words in my dressing room in the St Martin’s theatre in the West End whilst playing Miss Casewell in The Mousetrap, and over nine months and approximately 300 shows it occurred to me how similar the processes of writing and acting are. They may appear binary forms of... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-12-04 09:55:59 UTC ]
More news stories like this
‘This set of characters are simultaneously medieval kings and modern aristocrats.’ Allen Bratton on adapting the Henriad and his debut novel Henry Henry. The post Podcast | Allen Bratton appeared first on Granta. Continue reading at Granta
[ Granta | 2024-11-29 14:09:08 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Bestselling author who enjoyed overnight success with her debut novel A Woman of SubstanceIt was Graham Greene who inadvertently launched Barbara Taylor Bradford, who has died aged 91, on the road that would lead, in 2003, to her induction into the Writers Hall of Fame of America, alongside Mark... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-11-25 16:52:30 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Hogarth signs a debut novel by Woody Brown, the first nonspeaking graduate of UCLA, and Atria takes a steamy sports romance trilogy by Melanie Iglesias Perez. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-11-22 05:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Earlier this May, an Esquire article by Kate Dwyer called “Why Are Debut Novels Failing to Launch?” channeled the fear of debut novelists everywhere: What happens if no one buys my book? Book sales are an important way for editors and agents to gauge whether to invest in an author. If her first... Continue reading at The Millions
[ The Millions | 2024-10-16 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Breaking Bourgeois Taboos in Cairo: Ihsan Abdel Quddous’s A Nose and Three Eyes, by Gretchen McCullough Book Reviews [email protected] Mon, 10/14/2024 - 14:18 Five or six years ago, I was reading Ihsan Abdel Quddous (1919–1990) with my Arabic... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2024-10-14 19:18:43 UTC ]
More news stories like this
With earnings having dropped by 60%, it is harder than ever to keep going as a writer – even if your work gets rave reviewsThe 2022 publication of A Hunger, Ross Raisin’s fourth novel, was his “lowest moment”, the 45-year-old author says. “It was a deflating experience.”The book received... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2024-10-14 15:35:55 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Daniel M. Lavery’s debut novel collects vignettes from inside the Biedermeier, a second-rate, rapidly waning establishment in midcentury New York City. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2024-10-12 09:00:34 UTC ]
More news stories like this
In Clement Goldberg’s madcap and campy debut novel, cats, plants, alien intelligences, and a group of human misfits conspire to make us all freer and more joyfully connected. New Mistakes offers a hilarious, surreal, and sexy new vision of queer collectivity—one that involves the living earth... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2024-10-02 11:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Ever since novelists started mixing with Hollywood, film and prose have been easy bedfellows. A lot of authors are proud cinephiles. Others go so far as to credit movies as major form or content influences. And thanks to the fleet marketing department at Criterion and the rise of Letterboxd,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-09-27 15:48:15 UTC ]
More news stories like this