Lyndall Gordon launches DIVIDED LIVES in South Africa

Acclaimed biographer Lyndall Gordon will be at Cape Town’s Kalk Bay Bookshop tomorrow, Tuesday 11 November, for the launch of her memoir DIVIDED LIVES. She will be in conversation with Ann Donald at 18.00, before taking questions and signing copies. She will also be appearing at Gorry Bowes-Taylor’s  Literary Lunch on Saturday 15 November, with various radio and magazine interviews throughout the week. On Sunday she will give a talk at 16:00 at the Gitlin Library in Gardens and next week on Thursday 20 November The Book Lounge will hold an evening launch in central Cape Town, where she will be in conversation with Karina Szczurek.

Lyndall Gordon was born in Cape Town, to a mother whose mysterious illness confined her for years to life indoors. Lyndall was her carer, her “secret sharer”, a child who grew to know life through books, story-telling and her mother's own writings. Moving and beautiful, DIVIDED LIVES is a poetic memoir about the pain and joy of being a daughter, and also an intriguing social history and feminist text, rich in literary reference.

Lyndall Gordon is also the prize-winning author of literary biographies of Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Brönte, Mary Wollstonecraft, Henry James and T.S. Eliot. All of these biographies are published in the UK by Virago.

Praise for DIVIDED LIVES:

‘A wonderful – and at times painful – memoir about the expectations of love and duty between mother and daughter.’ – The Bookseller, Editor’s Picks

‘A biographer with soul, she reaches into the hearts of those she brings alive for us. She makes the meaning of their lives sing and sweat as she invites us into their experiences, their longings, their struggles and their disappointments. In preparation, she has learnt the anguish and the heartbeat of another, the other, her mother, Rhoda, whose presence rules the pages of this memoir. …In this fascinating mix between memoir and biography, we see the struggle of a daughter, to keep an attachment with her mother that is both close and yet boundaried, separate and connected, an attachment in which each can live their dreams.’ – Susie Orbach, The Observer

'This quietly devastating book takes us into many strange terrains... one of our most sensitive writers.' – Frances Wilson, Mail on Sunday

Finuala Dowling to appear at 26th Aldeburgh Poetry Festival this weekend

Finuala Dowling is appearing at the Twenty-Sixth Aldeburgh Poetry Festival this weekend. The festival, which includes over 50 events, is run across the Suffolk towns of Snape Maltings and Aldeburgh. The UK’s pre-eminent annual festival of contemporary poetry, the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival is for a mix of international names, lesser-known voices and exceptional newcomers. The festival also tends not to invite poets back more than once in a ten-year period, in order to keep line-ups fresh and exciting, so this will be a rare chance to catch Finuala appearing at Aldeburgh.

Finuala will be appearing at the following events:

Friday 7 November, 17:30-18:30

How to craft sly, succinct, memorable lines at the Jerwood Kiln Studio in Snape

Saturday 8 November, 9:30-10:30

Discussion: Poetry & Disobedience – Britten Studio, Snape PF9
with Thomas Lux, Tom Pickard and Hannah Silva

Sunday 9 November, 15:30-17:15

3.30-5.15 – Main reading: Finuala Dowling, Thomas Lux, Adelia Prado – Britten Studio, Snape

with Ellen Dore Watson (Translator)

Follow the festival organiser, The Poetry Trust, on Twitter or use the hashtag #APF26 to follow the events.

Finuala Dowling’s first poetry collection, I FLYING, won South Africa’s prestigious Ingrid Jonker Prize.  Her second collection, DOO-WOP GIRLS OF THE UNIVERSE was joint winner of the Sanlam Prize for poetry, and her third, NOTES FROM THE DEMENTIA WARD, won the Olive Schreiner Prize. Her short stories, poems and essays have appeared in several anthologies. Her first novel was WHAT POETS NEED, followed by FLYLEAF. HOME-MAKING FOR THE DOWN-AT-HEART won the M-Net Prize 2012 and was shortlisted for the University of Johannesburg Prize in the same year. Her new novel THE FETCH will be published in South Africa by Kwela in March 2015.

Praise for Finuala Dowling:

‘In years to come Dowling will be recognised for the home-grown Austen that she is.’ – Diane Awerbuck, TimesLive

‘[Dowling’s] fiction has its own special flavour, achieved by an alchemy of wit, irony, acuity, common sense and desperation.’- Jane Rosenthal, Mail & Guardian

 ‘Dowling is the local master of tragicomedy.’ – Danie Marais, Boeke-Insig

Anne de Courcy’s MARGOT AT WAR published yesterday

Anne de Courcy’s thrilling true story of Margot Asquith, wife to the Prime Minister during World War One, MARGOT AT WAR, was published yesterday by Weidenfeld & Nicholson.

Known for her wit, style and habit of speaking her mind, Margot  Asquith transformed 10 Downing Street into a glittering social and intellectual salon. Drawing on unpublished material from personal papers and diaries, Anne de Courcy vividly recreates this extraordinary time when the Prime Minister’s residence was run like an English country house, with socialising taking precedence over politics, love letters written in the cabinet room and gossip and state secrets exchanged over the bridge table. It tells of Margot’s heartbreak as she witnessed her much older husband fall hopelessly in love with a young friend. 

This interview with Anne ran in The Daily Telegraph last week.

Anne de Courcy is the author of many highly acclaimed works of biography and social history, and her bestselling THE FISHING FLEET (film rights sold at auction to Ridley Scott) was chosen as one of Lady Antonia Fraser’s best books of 2012 in The Daily Mail.

Praise for Anne de Courcy:

‘Anne de Courcy combines the perseverance of the social historian with the panache of a novelist’ – The Sunday Times

‘Compulsively readable, and immaculately researched… popular social history at its very best’ – Mail on Sunday

Three Blake Friedmann authors named in Green Carnation Prize Shortlist

Three of Juliet Pickering’s authors have been named in the Shortlist for the fourth annual Green Carnation Prize. Kerry Hudson (THIRST, Chatto & Windus), Anneliese Mackintosh (ANY OTHER MOUTH, Freight) and Laurie Penny (UNSPEAKABLE THINGS, Bloomsbury) have been nominated for the prize which is awarded to LGBT writers for any form of the written word. This year was the first time the award was open to works in translation. The winner will be announced at an event at Foyles, Charing Cross Road on 28 November.

THIRST by Kerry Hudson follows Alena and Dave who meet during a London heatwave to begin a love affair as dark, joyful and frenetic as the city itself. Dave is drawn to Alena's passion for life, while Alena discovers that sex can be more than a transaction and that love and safety are priceless commodities. But a relationship founded on secrets is easily shattered, and when Alena's ex-lover arrives, threatening to expose her, Alena flees. By the time Dave overcomes his mistrust about Alena and follows her into the bitter Russian winter, he can only hope he's not too late to convince her that just as spring will come, second and even third chances can always be found.

Anneliese Mackintosh’s ANY OTHER MOUTH is a viciously funny, gut-wrenching and shockingly frank account of sexual misadventure, familial disintegration, loss, hope and self-discovery. Part short story collection, part fictionalised memoir,  ANY OTHER MOUTH is a highly personal work in which Anneliese takes the most intense episodes of her life so far, and reimagines them into profound, playful and poignant tales.

UNSPEAKABLE THINGS by Laurie Penny speaks for a new feminism that takes no prisoners, a feminism that is about justice and equality, but also about freedom for all. It talks about the freedom to be who we are, to love who we choose, to invent new gender roles, and to speak out fiercely against those who would deny us those rights. It is a book that gives the silenced a voice ­– a voice that speaks of unspeakable things.

Praise for the books:

“[THIRST] explores the lives of people not generally considered fit for literature and does so with wit and a shrewdness that makes Hudson's subjects zing from the page.” – The Guardian

‘One of the saddest yet most uplifting things I’ve read in ages… Mackintosh is a real talent and ANY OTHER MOUTH is a remarkable debut.’ – The Independent

‘Insightful, provocative and bold… UNSPEAKABLE THINGS [is] essential for anybody who truly believes in equality and freedom.’ – Irvine Welsh

Julian Stockwin’s standalone novel THE SILK TREE published today

Julian Stockwin’s standalone historical novel, THE SILK TREE, is published today by Allison & Busby.

Forced to flee the sacking of Rome, merchant Nicander and his unlikely ally Marius, a fierce Roman legionary, escape to a new life in Constantinople. Determined to make their fortune, they plot a number of outrageous money making schemes, until they chance upon their greatest idea yet. Armed with a plan to steal the seeds of the silk tree from the far-off land of Seres, Nicander and Marius embark upon a terrifying journey across unknown realms. But first, they must deceive the powerful ruler of the Byzantine Empire, Justinian, in order to begin their voyage into the unknown and discover the closely guarded secret of silk. 

Stockwin’s novelisation of the Western discovery of silk is the first of a series of high-concept fictional explorations of commodities that changed the course of history. THE SILK TREE will be followed by a novel provisionally titled THE CRAKYS OF WAR, exploring gunpowder’s introduction to Europe. Julian recently wrote a fascinating blog on marrying fact and fiction in historical novels.

Julian Stockwin’s maritime historical action-adventure series, featuring Thomas Kydd, is published by Hodder & Stoughton. The 15th in the series, PASHA, was published on 9 October.  He plans for the series to become 21 novels, and Hodder have already commissioned books 16 and 17. 

About Julian Stockwin:

Julian Stockwin joined a tough sea-training school at 14, followed by the Royal Navy, transferring to the Royal Australian Navy when his family emigrated. He saw service in the Far East, the Antarctic, the South Seas and Vietnam, and was on board the Melbourne at the time of its disastrous peace time collision with the Voyager. He left the navy with the rank of Lieutenant Commander. He later worked for NATO on the strategic deployment of merchant shipping for which he was awarded the MBE, presented by H. M. The Queen. He was shortlisted for the Mountbatten Maritime Literary Award 2008.

Praise for THE SILK TREE:

'Stockwin's page-turning prose, vividly drawn characters and ability to draw the reader right into these ancient times create a grand and compelling historical epic. Completing each chapter is tantamount to unlocking the secret compartments in a Chinese puzzle box.' – Quarterdeck

Praise for the Thomas Kydd novels:

‘Historical fiction is a tricky beast. As a writer you have to keep your history in proper shape while combining it with a narrative that someone actually wants to read. Score two out of two for Julian Stockwin...It is engrossing.’ – Ian Barry, Daily Mail

‘Stockwin assembles an exciting and suspenseful historical loaded with action, intrigue, treachery, and the bloody gore of 1805 warfare.’ – Publisher’s Weekly