DIVIDED LIVES: DREAMS OF A MOTHER AND DAUGHTER - new memoir from Lyndall Gordon to Virago

Lyndall Gordon, the renowned and award-winning biographer of Emily Dickinson, T.S. Eliot, Charlotte Bronte and Mary Wollstonecraft among others, now turns to her own story with Divided Lives: Dreams of a Mother and Daughter. Lyndall Gordon grew up in South Africa and left her mother and her home to live in America and Britain. Yet the pull of their earlier intense years constantly drew her back.

Says Lyndall Gordon: 'A daughter, in childhood, is called on to be a secret sharer of her mother's illness and creativity. Here are kin who are alike as dreamers, whose dreams will take them different ways: the mother as visionary, the daughter exploring the question of how to be a woman. Though their lives divide, kinship endures.'

Lennie Goodings says 'It's a moving and  universal story, a wonderfully layered memoir about the expectations of love and duty between mother and daughter.' Virago will publish in 2014 and before that will reissue Lyndall's biographies of T.S. Eliot (AN IMPERFECT LIFE) and Henry James (A PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY JAMES: TWO WOMEN AND HIS ART). Lyndall Gordon's new memoir follows her earlier memoir SHARED LIVES, about a circle of South African women friends.

See more in The Bookseller.

Praise for Lyndall Gordon:

'Literary bloodhound and superbly eloquent chronicler.' -- Booklist

'Gordon, a...superb literary biographer who has previously turned her level yet lyrical gaze to Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Brontë, Mary Wollstonecraft and others.' -- Seattle Times

'Lyndall Gordon is a rare phenomenon: a biographer whose preoccupations and authorial career reveal a flowering towards imaginative truth.' -- Candia McWilliam, Herald

'Gordon is one of the best biographers writing today.' -- Catherine Hollis, Sacramento Book Review

'A gifted storyteller.' -- Carmela Ciuraru, Miami Herald

'Lyndall Gordon is known for the thoroughness of her research and meticulous attention to detail … a fine researcher's eye … an exceptional and unusual mind.' -- Janet van Eeden, The Witness

Carol Lefevre on Barbara Hanrahan Fellowship shortlist for Adelaide Festival Literary Awards

Carol Lefevre, author of IF YOU WERE MINE and NIGHTS IN THE ASYLUM, has had her unpublished novel A MAZE IN THE GARDEN shortlisted for the Barbara Hanrahan Fellowship at the Adelaide Festival Literary Awards 2012.

The winners will be announced Saturday 3 March, by South Australian Premier, the Hon Jay Weatherill, in a presentation at the Pioneer Women's Memorial Garden in Adelaide during Adelaide Writers' Week which is held as part of the Adelaide Festival.

Winning authors will also be invited to give a public reading during a Writers' Week session on Sunday 4 March at 5:30pm.

Introduced by the Government in 1986, the awards are managed by Arts SA, and offer a total $135,000 in prize money, shared between 10 awards, including six national awards, and two awards and two fellowships specifically for South Australian writers.

For full list of all shortlisted titles in each category, click here.

IF YOU WERE MINE and NIGHTS IN THE ASYLUM are published in Australia by Random House Century and NIGHTS IN THE ASYLUM is published by Picador in the UK.

Praise for IF YOU WERE MINE:
'Haunting and beautifully written; themes of love and loss are vividly explored.' -- Jane Rogers, author of MR WROE'S VIRGINS and THE VOYAGE HOME

'Lefevre is a great stylist and her landscapes are imposing…Lefevre's technique in IF YOU WERE MINE is fluid, the imagery is fine and well balanced (night skies described as the "felt lining of a mandolin case, scattered with silver coins", for example)…The empathetic dualities operating in the novel, the juxtaposition of maternal instincts with desire for the mother, propel this tale of loss and longing…Lefevre measures lyricism with poignancy and IF YOU WERE MINE is a tender, resonant achievement.' -- Rebecca Starford, Australian Book Review

'Lefevre…paints the area in vivid elegiac prose, and gives us wonderful word pictures of Semaphore and the burgeoning valley. The passages that stop the heart, however, are the frozen moments of tragedy, poignant in their restraint, their silent, visual power.'    -- Katherine England, Adelaide Advertiser

Praise for NIGHTS IN THE ASYLUM:
'A very atmospheric novel, deftly exploring relationships within families and beyond them, touching on aspects of race and discrimination as they have played out in small-town Australia.' -- www.bookbag.co.uk

'Haunting tale' -- Dorset Echo

'Emotionally intense novel of broken hearts and lives gone astray' -- The Guardian

3 Book UK Deal for Kishwar Desai

Simon & Schuster is to publish two new novels by Kishwar Desai, along with a re-release of her 2010 Costa Award-winning début Witness the Night.

Simon & Schuster's newly appointed senior commissioning editor for fiction Clare Hey bought the rights following the demise of Beautiful Books and will republish in June.

Desai's second novel ORIGINS OF LOVE, also due to be published in June, will be a simultaneous publication with the S&S India office in Delhi and the Australia office in Sydney.

Hey said she was excited about the "global opportunities" that Desai-who divides her time between the UK and India-offers. "Kishwar's first novel was a real sensation, both here in the UK and in India, and I am delighted to be taking her career to the next level with S&S and our sister offices overseas," she said.

Praise for WITNESS THE NIGHT:

'No 'next-best-thing' novel has been as literary, bold and compelling as WITNESS THE NIGHT... it is a taught, gripping and complex thriller with two enigmatic heroines at its core...if you liked Stieg Larsson's 'Girl With The Dragon Tattoo', this is the book for your summer/autumn 2011. I dare you - woman, man, neither or both - not to love WITNESS THE NIGHT.' -- Abigail Tarttelin, Huffington Post

'It is a talent for an author to be able to fictionalise a social issue; intertwined with fact whilst all the time rendering the reader captivated and moved; Desai does just this - splendidly.' -- Sima Barmania, The Independent

'A gripping read' -- The Indiaphile

'The novel that gets to the heart of tradition-bound India' -- The Pioneer

'It is with no surprise that we heard about Kishwar Desai winning the Costa First Novel Award 2010 earlier this week. Her novel, WITNESS THE NIGHT is a poignant and harrowing story set in a small town in India…' -- DSC South Asian Literary Festival

'Powerful' -- Hazel Larkin, Women's View on News

'Terrific' -- Toby Clements, The Telegraph

 'A powerfully-felt, shocking and moving indictment of cruelty and oppression' -- Maggie Gee, author of THE WHITE FAMILY

'...this sad and thought-provoking tale is certainly worth the read.' -- Laura Wilson, The Guardian

'Very important themes [and a] very appealing central character.' -- Jane Garvey, BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour

'Essential reading.' -- Nihal, BBC Asian Network

'Kishwar Desai pulls off a remarkable trick, transplanting a country house murder to modern day India in a book that's not afraid to tackle serious themes.' -- 2010 Costa First Novel Award

Joseph O’Connor’s stage version of MY COUSIN RACHEL to be performed at the Gate Theatre, Dublin

Joseph O'Connor's theatrical adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier's gothic tale will hit the stage on 12th April at Dublin's prestigious Gate Theatre and should run for eight weeks.

MY COUSIN RACHEL, a story of secrets, deceptions and petty jealousies, enthralled readers on its publication in 1951 and went on to become an international bestseller. It has previously been filmed, with Richard Burton starring in one of his earliest performances. Joe's new theatrical version promises to hold audiences in an unforgettable atmosphere of foreboding, suspicion and mistrust.

The production will be directed by Toby Frow, whose previous work for the stage includes versions of Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus and Edward II for the Manchester Royal Exchange and Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing for Salisbury Playhouse.

Joe is also currently scripting a film drama about Bram Stoker and his relationship with the actor Sir Henry Irving - one of the main prototypes for the character of Dracula - for the BBC.

Andy Briggs and Jim Sullos to feature in Radio 4 documentary, 'Tarzan: Lord of the Jungle'

Andy Briggs, whose collaboration with the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate, TARZAN: THE GREYSTOKE LEGACY brought the hundred year old Tarzan character swinging into the 21st Century, and Jim Sullos of ERB Inc., will talk to John Waite and be accompanied by cultural historian Jeffrey Richards and Desmond Morris, who'll be there to discuss the plausibility of the notion of a baby being raised by apes!

The program will air on Monday 27th February 2012, at 4.00pm on BBC Radio 4.

TARZAN: THE GREYSTOKE LEGACY was published by Faber in the UK in 2011 and has been sold in China, Czech Republic, Greece and Israel. The sequel, TARZAN: JUNGLE WARRIOR will be published this year, in time for the centenary celebrations.

Praise for TARZAN: THE GREYSTOKE LEGACY:

'I fell in love with Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan when I was 11 years old, and was jealous when he married that silly Jane. I would have been even more jealous of the Jane in TARZAN: THE GREYSTOKE LEGACY - she is not silly at all!  And what a stroke of brilliance to transform Tarzan into an eco-warrior. The Lord of the Jungle is with us still.' -- Dr Jane Goodall

'Tarzan is back with a bloodcurdling roar! An epic re-book of the classic series.' -- Eoin Colfer, author of ARTEMIS FOWL

'CRACKING jungle adventure with the one and only, all- time best eco-warrior, Tarzan.' -- MG Harris, author of THE JOSHUA FILES

'Wow! All the things I loved about the original Tarzan books rebooted for modern-day Africa, with a plot that will whisk you off your feet and swing you through the trees at breakneck speed.' -- Roderick Gordon, author of TUNNELS

'This is a lion-roaring read of an adventure that seized me from the first page and refused to let go.The action is breathless, the characters are enthralling and the environmental message is vital. Tarzan is not only stunningly reborn, he is more relevant today than he ever was.' -- Chris Bradford, author of YOUNG SAMURAI

'A hero that doesn't have special powers, can't do magic, and isn't an angel? Andy's Tarzan doesn't need them; he kicks ass from the moment he appears in the first chapter.' -- David Gatward, author of THE DEAD, THE DARK, THE DAMNED

'An awesome African adventure. The legend of Tarzan is in great hands.' -- Steve Feasey, author of CHANGELING

'A white-knuckle adventure worthy of Burroughs at his best. Andy Briggs' Tarzan is a stunning achievement.' -- William Hussey, author of WITCHFINDER