Skip to main content

‘I’m fine with being called an activist’: Angie Thomas on her The Hate U Give prequel

Angie Thomas talks about exploring violence and black fatherhood in her latest young adult novel – and why she’s hoping it won’t be banned

Angie Thomas does not hesitate when I ask whether her new novel will be banned somewhere. “Absolutely, I’m expecting it,” she replies. “Adults don’t like talking about teenage sex, they don’t want to get uncomfortable.” She has good reason to think so: The Hate U Give, her bestselling debut, was pulled from schools in the city of Katy, Texas. “The initial objection focused on swearing and the discussion of sexual acts and drugs. In her new young adult novel, Concrete Rose, drugs and violence are more than discussed: the book follows 17-year-old Maverick Carter, a self-described “drug-dealing, gangbanging, high school flunkout … who got two kids by two different girls”.

Readers of The Hate U Give will recognise Maverick as Starr Carter’s father, and Concrete Rose – Thomas’s third novel – is effectively its prequel. Once again, the reader is transported to the fictional US city of Garden Heights and the pacey, highly readable story of “Mav”, whose world is turned upside down when he becomes a father. How can he escape the gang he’s affiliated with, when the only routes out are prison or death?

Continue reading...

from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3gFJJPM
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Knives Out review – Daniel Craig goes Columbo in Cluedo whodunnit

Craig grills an all-star lineup of suspects when a wealthy novelist is found dead in Rian Johnson’s sharp, country-house murder mystery R ian Johnson unsheathes an entertainingly nasty, if insubstantial detective mystery with his new film, Knives Out. Back in 2005, his debut movie Brick (a high-school thriller) paid tribute to the hardboiled noir genre. Now he does the same thing for cosy crime, although there is nothing that cosy about it. Knives Out has a country house full of frowning suspects, deadpan servants and smirking ne’er-do-wells and an amusing performance from Daniel Craig as Benoît Blanc, the brilliant amateur sleuth from Louisiana who annoys the hell out of one and all by smiling enigmatically, occasionally plinking a jarring high note on the piano during the drawing-room interrogation and pronouncing in his southern burr: “Ah suh-spect far-wuhl play!” Continue reading... from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2L0NKO4
Post a Comment
Read more

Thirty Years of Adonis film review: sexually explicit gay drama mixes porn and pomposity

1/5 stars The line between soft-core porn and pompous art-house cinema grows ever finer in the seventh feature by writer, director and producer Danny Cheng Wan-cheung, also known as Scud. Intended as a philosophical statement about the meaninglessness of life, Thirty Years of Adonis instead comes across as a badly misjudged piece of sensationalist filmmaking. God’s Own Country review: gay love story set in the Yorkshire countryside The film revolves around aspiring gay actor Adonis Yang... from South China Morning Post - Culture feed https://ift.tt/2qgQkop
Post a Comment
Read more

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