Granta’s Best Young British Novelists – an update
I have now read at least one book by all twenty of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists so I feel I should now make a few comments. A couple of…
Kamila Shamsie: Burnt Shadows
The latest addition to my website is Kamila Shamsie's Burnt Shadows. This is a story about allegiances (and lack thereof) and identity. All of the main characters struggle with who…
Helen Oyeyemi: Mr Fox
The latest addition to my website is Helen Oyeyemi's Mr Fox. This is a modern updating on the Bluebeard legend. St John Fox is a 1930s US writer whose novels…
Benjamin Markovits: Childish Loves
The latest addition to my website is Benjamin Markovits' Childish Loves, his third novel about Lord Byron. Unlike his previous two, this one mixes in (semi-)autobiographical details with Byron's story,…
Steven Hall: The Raw Shark Texts
The latest addition to my website is Steven Hall's The Raw Shark Texts. I found it a rather contrived novel that did not really work for me. It tells the…
Adam Foulds: The Quickening Maze
The latest addition to my website is Adam Foulds' The Quickening Maze. This a story about the poet John Clare and, to a much lesser degree, the poet Alfred Tennyson.…
Ross Raisin: God’s Own Country (US: Out Backward)
The latest addition to my website is Ross Raisin's God's Own Country (US: Out Backward). It is a story told by Sam Marsdyke, a solitary eighteen-year old who lives on…
Joanna Kavenna: The Birth of Love
The latest addition to my website is Joanna Kavenna's . This is a novel about childbirth. There are four separate but linked stories about childbirth. The first is set in…
Nadifa Mohamed: Black Mamba Boy
The latest addition to my website is Nadifa Mohamed's Black Mamba Boy. Mohamed is one of the Granta’s Best Young British Novelists, though she is Somali and this novel is…
Xiaolu Guo: 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth
The latest addition to my website is Xiaolu Guo's 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth. Though nominally written in English, it was in fact her first novel published in Chinese.…