Skip to main content

Debut author of Queenie caps success with Costa prize shortlisting

Candice Carty-Williams, who began writing to improve representation of black British characters in fiction, joins 19 other authors contending for prestigious book of the year honour

Candice Carty-Williams never planned on being an author, but applied to join a writing retreat in 2016 because she felt that black British authors needed more representation in the white world of publishing. Three years down the line, sales of her debut novel Queenie are booming, a Channel 4 adaptation is in the works, and she’s just been shortlisted for the Costa book awards.

The story of a young black Londoner negotiating her love life, career and family, Queenie is, according to the judges for the Costas’ first novel category, “eminently readable, funny and thought-provoking”. It’s up for the £5,000 debut prize along with Brian Bilston’s Diary of a Somebody, about a man who decides to write a poem every day for a year; Sara Collins’s The Confessions of Frannie Langton, a historical fiction about a maid’s trial for the murder of her master and mistress; and Joanna Glen’s story of a girl who doesn’t fit in, The Other Half of Augusta Hope.

Continue reading...

from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2ONuCUP
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tracey Emin decorates Regent's Park and a celebration of Islamic creativity – the week in art

Emin and others survey the state of sculpture, Glenn Brown takes his decadent imagination to Newcastle and artists offer northern exposure – all in your weekly dispatch Frieze Sculpture Park Tracey Emin, Barry Flanagan and John Baldessari are among the artists decorating Regent’s Park with a free survey of the state of sculpture. • Regent’s Park, London , 4 July until 7 October. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2IDCpPV
Post a Comment
Read more

When Brooklyn was queer: telling the story of the borough's LGBTQ past

In a new book, Hugh Ryan explores the untold history of queer life in Brooklyn from the 1850s forward, revealing some unlikely truths For five years Hugh Ryan has been hunting queer ghosts through the streets of Brooklyn, amid the racks of New York’s public libraries, among its court records and yellow newspaper clippings to build a picture of their lost world. The result is When Brooklyn Was Queer, a funny, tender and disturbing history of LGBTQ life that starts in an era, the 1850s, when those letters meant nothing and ends before the Stonewall riots started the modern era of gay politics. Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2H9Zexs
Post a Comment
Read more