Penguin Random House

Manorism (SHORTLISTED, TS ELIOT PRIZE)

The working poet is required to remain on duty, ready for the moment when they are inspired or moved to write. In the case of Yomi Sode, this role is more proactive, requiring the poet to actively sift the airwaves and social media in search of those who wish to ignore, belittle or simply redact the spoken and written experience of black lives. This is a draining but necessary responsibility, and one which Yomi Sode takes seriously in his collection Manorism in which he rails against the slave trade, white privilege, the scandal of Grenfell and Police brutality.

Bless the Daughter Raised By a Voice In Her Head (Shortlisted for the Felix Dennix Prize for First Collection)

Somali-British poet, Warsan Shire draws us into the complexities of the transition from girl to woman, immigrant to citizen, in this, her much awaited and first full collection. With an array of accolades which include her much circulated and highly influential poem ‘Home’, and her work with Beyoncè Knowles-Carter on the Album Lemonade, this much awaited collection is written with sensitivity and without pretence.

Cheryl’s Destinies (Shortlisted, Forward Prize for Best Collection)

Stephen Sexton’s second collection Cheryl’s Destinies is a postmodern and playful investigation of mysticism, temporality and personal relations. Divided into three acts, these poems flit through space and time, like a fortune teller shuffling her

All that remains

If the intriguing title of this book invites you to expect something different, then read on and you won’t be disappointed. Dame Professor Sue Black, as one of the country’s leading anatomists and forensic anthropologists, is no stranger to death; her thoughts on death and its inevitability, which has featured in both her personal and Read More

Lost Children’s Archive: A Novel (Longlisted, 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction)

In a recent interview for The Guardian Valeria Luiselli complained that we demand too little of the novel as readers or as students of the form. In upholding “relatability” and “empathy” as praiseworthy qualities, we mistake what are entry level virtues for the high bar. It goes without saying then that this is an ambitious Read More

EXIT WEST (Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017)

Twice short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, Mohsin Hamid is an author who never disappoints. Born in Lahore, a place that has suffered bombings and terror attacks, Hamid has taken inspiration from one of his own personal crises and created his fourth short novel Exit West, where we join hopeful couple Saeed and Nadia on Read More

IDAHO

“The smell would have been there on the way back, too. It is the one constant. It connects the two things in Ann’s mind that she can’t manage to connect otherwise – the drive up the mountain and the drive back down.” Just like the eponymous state, Emily Ruskovich’s debut novel presents a false etymology: Read More