Iran’s Poet of Female Desire, Forough Farrokhzad, is celebrated in a novel by Maryam Diener

posted 2/3/2020

Beyond Black There Is No Color: The Story of Forough Farrokhzad is written in the first person, as if narrated by Forough herself, in a loose diary style. It depicts real-life episodes in Forough’s life: her marriage as a teenager to a much older man, her early experience of motherhood and divorce, her affair with the married film director Ebrahim Golestan, and her 12-day stay in a leper colony, which became the subject of her award-winning documentary.

For those unfamiliar with the poet, the book is an introduction to her life and legacy. For those who know her well, it is a reminder of the powerful voice that she was and is . . .

READ MORE, click here

BOOK INFO, click here

BROADWAY ARTS FESTIVAL  | A celebration of the arts in north Cotswolds

“Pre-Raphaelite Sisters: Models & Muses” Talk by Jan Marsh  | Sat June 13 @ 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm

Join festival goers for an illustrated talk by Jan Marsh, curator of the recent exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, which features familiar and newly-discovered images by and of women in the movement, including Jane Morris, Marie Spartali Stillman and Jamaican-born Fanny Eaton.

Dr Jan Marsh is a long-standing expert on the Pre-Raphaelite movement with trailblazing books and exhibitions on Elizabeth Siddal, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti and May Morris to her credit.

There will also be a book signing.

The event will take place in The Lifford Hall in Broadway

Tickets £15

Tickets go on sale to the general public through the website at 10am on Good Friday (April 10th 2020) and to Benefactors of the festival 2 weeks earlier.
If you become a Benefactor of the Broadway Arts festival you can qualify for priority booking so find out more HERE  

BOOKS
Get your copy of Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood HERE

Get your copy of The Legend of Elizabeth Siddal HERE

Image credit: Ophelia by John Everett Millais, 1865-66. Private Collection

Do book prizes count these days, other than boosting book sales and giving literary book chatterers something to chat about?

Whatever your point of view, when it comes to contemporary fiction, it’s an honour just to be nominated.

So Quartet’s author T.J. Gorton is chuffed that his novel Only the Dead – A Levantine Tragedy has been longlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award.

Especially since the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award is now in its 66th year, making it the longest-running UK prize for debut fiction and – except for the James Tait Black and the Hawthornden – the oldest literary prize in Britain.

Longlisted BOOK INFO
Only the Dead – A Levantine Tragedy by T.J. Gorton | 14 GBP ISBN 978-0-70437-460-7 published 27 June 2019

Only the Dead is part adventure story and part exploration of the moral complexities arising from war, brutality and the desire for revenge.

Read the review in COUNTRY LIFE by Barnaby Rogerson HERE

Longlist announced for Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award 2020

Today, Monday 2 March, the Authors’ Club announces the longlist for the annual Best First Novel Award.

The longlisted books are as follows:

Claire Adam Golden Child (Faber & Faber)

George Alagiah, The Burning Land (Canongate)

Layla AlAmmar, The Pact We Made (Borough Press)

Jim Al-Khalili, Sunfall (Bantam Press)

Damian Barr, You Will Be Safe Here (Bloomsbury)

Sara Collins, The Confessions of Frannie Langton (Viking)

Joanna Glen, The Other Half of Augusta Hope (Borough Press)

TJ Gorton, Only the Dead (Quartet)

Anne Griffin, When All is Said, (Sceptre)

Jenny McCartney, The Ghost Factory (4th Estate)

Beth O’ Leary, The Flatshare (Quercus)

Jacqueline O’Mahoney, A River in the Trees (Riverrun)

Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Blood & Sugar (Mantle)

Lucy Popescu (chair of the judging panel) commented: “We’ve had another amazing year and so have 13 on the longlist. These remarkable debut novelists cover an array of subjects from climate change to South Africa, from slavery to Irish history as well as contemporary social comedy. Once again women dominate the longlist. It’s thrilling to support this fascinating list of debut novelists tackling such wide-ranging themes.”

 Key Dates

Shortlist announcement: 27 March

Shortlisted authors event at Hatchards Piccadilly: Thursday 30 April

The winner will be announced at a dinner at the National Liberal Club: Wednesday 20 May

 About the Prize:

The winning novel is selected by guest adjudicator Andrew Miller from a shortlist drawn up by a panel of Authors’ Club members, chaired by Lucy Popescu.

The prize is open to any debut novel written in English and published in the UK between 1 Jan and 31 Dec 2019 with one important exception: novels first published

in another country of origin will not be considered. The prize of £2500 exists to support UK-based authors, publishers and agents, so the novel must originate in the UK and not have been published anywhere else in the world before its UK publication

Inaugurated in 1954, the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award is now in its 66th year, making it the longest-running UK prize for debut fiction and – except for the James Tait Black and the Hawthornden – the oldest literary prize in Britain.

Past winners have included Brian Moore, Alan Sillitoe, Paul Bailey, Gilbert Adair, Nadeem Aslam, Diran Adebayo, Jackie Kay, Susan Fletcher, Nicola Monaghan, Laura Beatty, Anthony Quinn, Jonathan Kemp, Kevin Barry, Ros Barber, Hisayo Rowan Buchanan and Gail Honeyman. Last year’s prize was awarded to Guy Gunaratne.

Past adjudicators have included Louise Doughty, AK Kennedy, Vikram Seth, Philip Hensher, Joanne Harris, Deborah Moggach and, going back further, Kingsley Amis and Compton Mackenzie.

 About The Authors’ Club

Established by Walter Besant in 1891, the Club has provided a social meeting place for writers for 125 years.