MARGOT AT WAR published in paperback today

Anne de Courcy’s thrilling true story of Margot Asquith, wife to the Prime Minister during World War One, MARGOT AT WAR, is out today in paperback from 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 Drawing on unpublished material from personal papers and diaries, Anne de Courcy vividly recreates this extraordinary time when the Prime Minister’s residence was run like an English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. 

The book was shortlisted for Political Book of the Year 2015 in the Paddy Power Political Book Awards.

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

THE FOLLY PUBLISHED IN THE UK BY AND OTHER STORIES

Ivan Vladislavić’s THE FOLLY is out now in the UK, published by And Other Stories. The novella was originally published twenty years ago, heralding the arrival of a unique and surprising voice in fiction. It was read then as an evocative allegory on the rise and fall of apartheid, but continues to strike new chords, its haunting characters speaking strange truths to our world today. THE FOLLY is published in South Africa by Umuzi and Archipelago published in the US in September, when Ivan Vladislavić was in the country to receive his Windham Campbell Prize for fiction. At a ceremony at Yale University he was awarded one of this year’s nine $150,000 prizes for Fiction, alongside writers Teju Cole, Helon Habila, Geoff Dyer and Edmund de Waal, among others.

On first publication THE FOLLY was hailed by André Brink as being ‘In the tradition of Elias Canetti, a tour de force of the imagination’ and its new edition has already drawn much praise. Nicholas Lezard has picked it as Paperback of the Week in the Guardian and spoken of its ‘fabulistic timelessness’ and other reviewers have described it as follows:

‘THE FOLLY is mysterious, lyrical and wickedly funny — a masterful novel about loving and fearing your neighbour. Ivan Vladislavić is one of the most significant writers working in English today. Everyone should read him.’ — Katie Kitamura

‘The rise and fall of ‘the plan’ at the heart of this potent short novel is as brilliant as it is unsettling. Vladislavić writes with spring-loaded precision about universal dreams and local desolation. A fable for the ages, a parable for our time.’ — Laird Hunt

‘Vladislavić’s cryptic, haunting tale echoes Jorge Luis Borges and David Lynch, drawing readers into its strange depths.’ — Publishers Weekly

'Memorable work that never underplays the unpleasant societal tensions that lie below the surface. … THE FOLLY plays out like a berserk blend of fairy tales, the plays of Samuel Beckett, and the films of Jacques Tati.’ – Tobias Carroll, Electric Lit

In THE FOLLY Mr and Mrs Malgas are going quietly about their lives when an eccentric squatter named Nieuwenhuizen arrives on the vacant plot next door, with a scheme to build an elaborate mansion. Slowly but surely the stranger's charm and persuasive language draws Malgas into "the plan". Grimly humorous and playfully serious, Ivan Vladislavić’s classic first novel is a comic and philosophical masterpiece.

Ivan Vladislavić is the award-winning, critically-acclaimed author of a prestigious body of literary work, published in several international markets. Ivan lives in Johannesburg, where he is a Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing at the University of the Witwatersrand and has won and been shortlisted for South Africa’s most prestigious prizes.  His work is included in the GRANTA BOOK OF THE AFRICAN SHORT STORY and Sylph Editions published A LABOUR OF MOLES in the Cahiers Series. His novel DOUBLE NEGATIVE has just been published in Germany by A1 and Osburg have acquired German rights to THE EXPLODED VIEW, for publication in 2016.  And Other Stories published his new short story collection 101 DETECTIVES earlier this year.

Read a new short story ‘Catch’ by Ivan on Visual Verse.

Visit Ivan's website.

RACHEL'S BLUE BY ZAKES MDA LONGLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL IMPAC DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD 2016

Zakes Mda’s RACHEL’S BLUE has been longlisted for the 2016 International DUBLIN Literary Award, alongside fellow Blake Friedmann author Joseph O’Connor, and other authors like David Grossman, Haruki Murakami, Rabih Allamedine, Neel Mukherjee, Michael Cunningham, Ali Smith and Helen Oyeyemi. Books are nominated for the Award by invited public libraries in cities throughout the world - making the Award unique in its coverage of international fiction. Titles are nominated on the basis of 'high literary merit' as determined by the nominating library.

Mda’s book was selected by the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Library and Information Services, South Africa and explores the suffocating nature of a small-town community, prejudice, and the complicated relationship that develops when the boundaries of love and friendship become confused between two high-school friends reunited in adulthood.  Novelist Zakes Mda has made a name for himself as a key chronicler of the new, post-apartheid South Africa, casting a satirical eye on its claims of political unity, its rising black middle class, and other aspects of its complicated, multiracial society.

In this novel, however, he turns his lens elsewhere: to a college town in Ohio. Here he finds human relations and the battle between the community and the individual no less compelling, or ridiculous. In Athens, Ohio, old high school friends Rachel Boucher and Jason de Klerk reconnect­ and rekindle a relationship that quickly becomes passionate. Initially, all seems well. Not only the couple, but their friends and family, are happy at this unexpected conjunction. But then Rachel meets someone else. Jason’s anger boils over into violence—violence that turns the community on its head, pitting friends and neighbours against one another. And all this happens before Rachel realizes she’s pregnant.

RACHEL’S BLUE was written as a response to the legal situation that persists in many US states today – that the father of a child conceived from rape can claim the same paternity rights as any father. Although RACHEL’S BLUE is set in Athens County, Ohio, many of the issues raised in the book are familiar to South Africa and reviewer Eckard Smuts wrote on SlipNet that “one of the novel’s strongest accomplishments is the ease with which Mda has transplanted his sensitivity to such issues – and to their human impact – from the more familiar South African setting of his earlier work to the apparently fertile grounds of the American Midwest.”

RACHEL’S BLUE won the University of Johannesburg Prize 2014, and you can learn more about that and read the first chapter of the novel here.  It is published in South Africa by Kwela, and Seagull Press will bring out an edition for the UK and the US in early 2016.

Zakes Mda is the author of the much loved classics of South African literature WAYS OF DYING and THE HEART OF REDNESS, among many others. He was born in the Eastern Cape, but spent his early childhood in Soweto, finishing his school education in Lesotho. He is a prolific writer of novels, plays, poems and articles for academic journals and newspapers, and his writing has been translated into twenty languages. His creative work also includes painting, and theatre and film productions. Mda, whose forebears were exiled from Qumbu to Lesotho after the assassination of Hamilton Hope, is a recipient of South Africa’s Order of Ikhamanga. He is based in Athens, Ohio, where he spends his time writing and teaching.

Penguin Random South Africa’s Umuzi imprint will publish his new novel LITTLE SUNS next month.

Praise for Zakes Mda

‘Mda writes from the inside with a rare combination of passion and truth that will connect with readers everywhere.’ Booklist

‘A voice for which one should feel not only affection but admiration.’ New York Times

‘Zakes Mda is among the most acclaimed exponents of a new artistic freedom. His fiction has a beguiling lyricism and humour.’ The Guardian

JOSEPH O’CONNOR’S THE THRILL OF IT ALL LONGLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL IMPAC DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD 2015

THE THRILL OF IT ALL by Joseph O’Connor has been longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2015. The longlist has just been announced, and O’Connor finds himself in good company alongside Martin Amis, Paulo Coelho, Michael Cunningham, David Grossman and other internationally acclaimed authors.

Books are nominated for the Award by invited public libraries in cities throughout the world - making the Award unique in its coverage of international fiction. Each year a panel of distinguished international judges is then put in place under a non-voting chair to consider each book from the longlist and narrow it down to a shortlist of up to 10 titles, coming up with the final winner by June.

THE THRILL OF IT ALL was nominated by Tampere City Library, in Finland. The librarian explained his choice: ‘To succeed in writing a novel about the music business appears to be almost as hard – if not even harder – than actually making it in the said business. However, O’Connor pulls it off admirably, his take on the subject manages to capture and convey “the thrill of it all” well and truly. The fragile interpersonal relationship of the protagonists has been portrayed in a particularly convincing manner. Ships in the night, indeed…’

THE THRILL OF IT ALL is O’Connor’s first contemporary novel after the critically-acclaimed million-copy selling STAR OF THE SEA, and the two historical novels that followed it. It has been chosen by Colm Toibin as one of his Best Books of2014 in The Observer, and as Irish Times’ Book of the Week in August 2015.

At college in 1980s Luton, Robbie Goulding, an Irish-born teenager, meets the elusive Fran Mulvey, an orphaned Vietnamese refugee. Together they form a band. Joined by cellist Sarah-Thérèse Sherlock and her twin brother Seán on drums, The Ships in the Night set out to chase fame. But the story of this makeshift family is haunted by ghosts from the past.

Spanning 25 years, THE THRILL OF IT ALL rewinds and fast-forwards through an evocative soundtrack of struggle and laughter, infused with blues, ska, classic showtunes, New Wave and punk. Using interviews, lyrics, memoirs and diaries, the tale stretches from suburban England to Manhattan’s East Village, from Thatcher-era London to the Hollywood Bowl, from the meadows of the Glastonbury Festival to a wintry Long Island, culminating in a Dublin evening in July 2012, a night that changes everything.

A story of loyalties, friendship, the call of the muse, and the beguiling shimmer of teenage dreams, this is a warm-hearted, funny and deeply moving novel for anyone that’s ever loved a song.

Joseph O’Connor has written film and television scripts, journalism, short stories, biography and travel literature. In summer 2009 he took up the prestigious Harman Visiting Professorship in Creative Writing at Baruch College, City University of New York, following in the footsteps of Edward Albee, Paul Auster, Anita Desai and Yeats (who features in GHOST LIGHT). In 2014 he became theinaugural Frank McCourt Chair in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick, chosen above many other distinguished writers considered for the post.

HAPPY GUY FAWKES! - LUNGDON by Edward Carey is out!

November 2015 marks the drawing to a close of Edward Carey’s exceptional Iremonger trilogy, with LUNGDON being published in the UK (Hot Key), US (Overlook) and Canada (HarperCollins) this month. Like its predecessors (HEAP HOUSE and FOULSHAM) LUNGDON is published in hardback with a stunning cover, endpapers and internal illustrations by Edward himself – even more wonderful Iremonger images than ever before in this stunning final instalment!

With a grand finale taking place in the Houses of Parliament (with Queen Victoria making a cameo appearance), Guy Fawkes seems an appropriate publication day for LUNGDON. Edward wrote this piece on Guy Fawkes (illustrated with his own reversible Halloween/Guy Fawkes card) for Electric Literature and will be introducing his fans in Austin, Texas to this very British celebration today. The US launch will take place at the Uncommon Objects store at 7:30 pm tonight and will feature the cutting (and consuming) of a House of Parliament cake and much LUNGDON signing!

FOULSHAM and HEAP HOUSE continue to receive amazing reviews. FOULSHAM was selected by Amazon.com for the best YA Books of July, who called it ‘an eagerly awaited return to an unusual gothic world of trash and treasure… There is much to learn and marvel at from beginning to end.’ Edward Carey has been likened to HARRY POTTER by Nancy Pearl, who gave HEAP HOUSE two thumbs up in her talk with Marcie Sillman on Seattle News & Information. HEAP HOUSE was a New York Times Notable Book.

Recently the Antonia Jannone gallery hosted the first ever exhibition of the Iremonger world to coincide with Bompiani’s Italian publication of FOULSHAM and Edward Carey’s visit to Milan for the Bookcity festival. Thirty original illustrations were on display – ten for each book. Edward Carey and his agent Isobel Dixon attended the launch of the exhibition last weekend, Edward’s second invitation from Bompiani this year following his visit to the Bologna book fair to launch HEAP HOUSE. The Iremonger trilogy is sold in twelve countries and the audio edition is due for release soon. Check out Grasset’s trailer for Le Château des Ferrailleurs (HEAP HOUSE) here.

In LUNGDON, the Iremonger family is at large in London, the ruins of the town of Foulsham left burning behind them. They need a new home and they intend to find one ... Londoners are beginning to notice bizarre happenings – loved ones disappearing, strange objects appearing and a creeping darkness that seems to swallow up the daylight. The Police have summoned help, but is their cure more deadly than the feared Iremongers? What role will Clod play: returning son or rebel? Heartbroken child or hero? And where are all the rats coming from?

The interlocking fates of the odd and marvellous Iremongers are now to be unravelled and disclosed in the thrilling conclusion to the Iremonger trilogy. Will servant girl Lucy Pennant and young Clod Iremonger be reunited? Will the Heaps, their ramshackle ancestral home, continue to stand? Will their birth objects, discarded items – a door knob, a bathtub plug, a matchbox, what-have-you – given to them at birth with lives and histories of their own, continue to exert their uncanny pull? All will be revealed in LUNGDON.

Novelist, visual artist and playwright Edward Carey is the author of two acclaimed adult novels as well, published in many countries around the world. OBSERVATORY MANSIONS was shortlisted for the Borders Discover New Writers Award and described by John Fowles as ‘proving the potential brilliance of the novel form’. ALVA AND IRVA was longlisted for the 2005 IMPAC Literary Award. Both were accompanied by Edward’s artworks.

Follow Edward on Twitter

Visit the Iremongers on Edward’s marvellous website

Praise for the IREMONGER trilogy:

‘If this were music, Carey would be Eric Satie. If it were film, he would be Tim Burton.’ – Newsday

‘Edward Carey's HEAP HOUSE-- delightful, eccentric, heartfelt, surprising, philosophical, everything that a novel for children should be.’ – Eleanor Catton, author of THE LUMINARIES

‘IREMONGER torques and tempers our memories of Dickensian London into a singularly jaunty and creepy tale of agreeable misfits. Read it by gas lamp, with a glass of absinthe at your wrist and a fireplace poker by your knee. ’ – Gregory Maguire, author of WICKED

‘Fabulously strange and in the tradition of Mervyn Peake... Astonishing and inventive, it calls out to be read.' – Sunday Times’ Best Children’s Books of 2013 

‘Spectacularly weird’ – New York Times Books Review, Editor’s Choice