“The cats began to walk on their hind legs, don fancy neckwear, and sport monocles and walking sticks – the Louis Wain cat had been born.”
“I was a child and believed that if I stood alone, quiet enough, long enough beside my grandfather’s coffin, he would speak to me.”
“Over the past half century, many musicians and listeners have belonged to tribes. What’s wrong with that?”
‘It is a novel, and I set that out very early… I new as someone in a wheelchair with a similar background to the main character I knew it’d always be conflated. So I call it kind of a land grab - I made the reader do the work, and kind of understand that to get to the book I wanted I had to y’know look at some very personal and intimite things in my life. And I couldn’t deny that the main character and I do share - he comes from me, and I didn’t want to have that degree of plausible denability that some other fiction writers utilise. I wanted to kind of admit that.’
Jarred McGinnis
Monocle Meet the Writers
“When a book and a reader are meant for each other, both of them know it.”
“He’s not a copper who happens to be a man. He’s a man who happens to be a copper, and he carries that weight with him everywhere he goes.”
“This is a story about a band. A band that lived and flourished and then died its own natural death. At that point it should have disappeared from the pages of the history books for ever, and would have done so if an extraordinary miracle had not occurred and brought the Kamanga Kings back to life.”
‘Rooted in a decolonised narrative style where every turn of phrase brings forth the weight of its cultural implications, A River Called Time is a deeply thoughtful, surprising and rewarding read … In short, much of the novel is less an imagined reality than a conditional one: a status quo that could well exist, had major historical events panned out differently. The achievement of Newland is to convey this reality so convincingly.’
Charlie Stone
The Arts Desk
‘To me, this book thematically is all about the importance of truth telling, particularly in uncertain times … And I think in each parallel Markriss has to tackle that, whether he should be involved in truth telling or not’ Courttia Newland speaks to Front Row about his new novel, A River Called Time
Courttia Newland
Front Row
‘A Derry writer’s powerful, unflinching account of her war-torn childhood and her quest for peace is part hymn to nature, part Troubles memoir’
Guardian, Book of the Day
Salena speaks to Nihal Arthanayake about Mrs Death Misses Death
‘Told in sparse, affecting prose interspersed with poetry, Godden produces a thought-provoking novel that travels across time and place to question the value of life, the experiences of womanhood, and grief in all its forms.’
The Observer
Kerri ní Dochartaigh introduces Thin Places, a story of a wild Ireland, an invisible border, an old conflict and the healing power of the natural world.
20 Best Books of 2020
‘I’m sure many of us have sought solace and healing from the wonders of the living world during the anxious months of lockdown. This past year has been a golden one for nature writing … The most affecting book for me, though, was Rootbound: Rewilding a Life in which Alice Vincent, a champion of urban gardening who founded Noughticulture, delivered a poignant testimony to the joy and hope greenery brings to your life.’
Martin Chilton
Independent
‘If we re-frame lockdown as an opportunity to hibernate until spring, things begin to look a little less bleak … Look closer and you will see hope: green tips of spring bulbs pushing determinedly through the ground; the sugary pink and heady hit of viburnum, sarcococca and daphne blossom; the swelling, fuzzy buds of magnolia. For the first time in my life, I’ve had the time to notice these little wonders.’
Alice Vincent, author of Rootbound discusses reframing the lockdown, and the unexpected joys found along the way.
Alice Vincent
The Independent
Kate Grenville’s official website
Kate Grenville’s website has information on all of her books – from her very first (the short story collection Bearded Ladies) to this year’s A Room Made of Leaves – as well as essays available to read now.