Book at Bedtime has been a key feature of my listening landscape for as long as I can remember. Over the years it has lulled me to sleep (and sometimes kept me awake, usually for the right reasons). So I am thrilled that You Will Be Safe Here will be a Book at Bedtime FOR TWO WEEKS! The abridgment, by Richard Hamilton, manages to tell the story without giving everything away. Justine Willett has given the production everything. Tracy-Ann Oberman brings her characteristic power to the reading and her own South African story.
Listen in: BBC Radio 4, 2245 nightly May 27 - June 7th
Read More
Damian Barr’s memoir of growing up as a gay teenager in the 1980s, Maggie and Me, featured the striking image of a place where the sun seemed to set twice. Raised near Motherwell in Scotland, in the shadow of the Ravenscraig steelworks, Barr recalled how the sluicing of the furnaces each evening would send a “bigger, brighter, cleaner light” through the “porridge-coloured curtains” of his council home.
For his debut novel, Barr has chosen a location where the sun barely sets at all. The first part takes the form of a diary written by Sarah van der Watt, the wife of a Boer farmer living in the Orange Free State at the turn of the 20th century. Though she has never left the veldt, Sarah’s head is filled with dreams of European literature. “One day I would like to see the sun set as it does in Europe,” she states. “Here it just disappears like a coin rolling off a table.”
Click here to read the full review.
Read More
This is the story of Raymond Buys, whose murder still haunts me. It’s the story of his family, his community and the culture of racism and toxic masculinity that saw him sent to a camp that promised to ‘make men out of boys’. The camp where he was tortured and killed. It’s the story of the rise of the far Right in South Africa and around the world and it’s linked to a hidden history and one of the most shameful episodes of Empire.
Read More
Bloomsbury have designed a beautiful book plate for You Will Be Safe Here. IT'S GOT STARS ON! Not just any stars, but the Southern Cross which guides the characters in the historical and the contemporary parts of the story. AND it features one of my favourite lines--yes, I'm allowed to have a favourite line: 'The stars are saying nothing'.
Read More
Tonight I’ll be awarding more than £1million to eight writers of fiction, non-fiction, drama and poetry. Yep, over £1m. All thanks to the generosity and vision of Donald Windham and Sandy Campbell and with the care and support of the The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale. You can watch live online from 7pm.
Read More
Diana and I spent far more talking about the business of life than death but as she got older death nosied in. Then producer Eddie Morgan had this idea for a very final sort of interview: a Final Say to be broadcast after the subject has died.
Read More
Books like ‘A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality’ hurt lives while making profits for companies that purports to care. This is not a freedom of speech issue. It’s about our freedom to live. Amazon must be held accountable and make different choices. Thank you Patrick Strudwick for interviewing me and writing this powerful feature for Buzzfeed.
Click here for the full interview.
Read More
I can't believe it's real! Holding actual copy of my first novel for the first time.
If you're writing, keep going. If you're thinking about writing, start. I hope you get to hold your own book one day. Thanks to all teachers and everyone who got me here. #amwritingfiction
Read More