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Introduction: Best of Young British Novelists 4
John Freeman
‘We live in unreaderly times, but our belief is that these novelists will be exceptions to the general rule of irrelevance faced by writers today.’
Jenni Fagan | My Writing Playlist
Jenni Fagan
Best of Young British Novelist Jenni Fagan selects five songs that she loves to write to.
João’s War
Julia Rochester
‘He repeatedly said, “I should have been a priest.“ He was right. People sought his benediction.’
Kopfkino
Chloe Aridjis
‘Yet the little white disks with a dent down the middle are no panacea; whenever I take one of these thought guillotines I feel trapped in a grey zone’.
Lullaby
Mary Ruefle
‘I wasn’t bored, I was relaxed, and, I suppose, happy (I’ve never been able to figure out how happiness feels).’
Mess
Romesh Gunesekera
‘You have to go on the offensive until you smell victory. Then you have the aphrodisiac and can go full tilt.’
Miroslav Penkov | First Sentence
Miroslav Penkov
‘It was an old woman’s racism that inspired the first line of ‘Blood Money’.’
Mrs de Pelet
Evie Wyld
‘I see her with her hands cupped in front of her shouting ‘The “O”, ladies, The Vaginal O’ as we read Shakespeare.’
Naomi Alderman | My Writing Playlist
Naomi Alderman
Naomi Alderman shares five songs she loves to write to.
Ninth and Race
Dan Burt
‘Prostitution, gambling, fencing, contract murder, loan-sharking, political corruption and crime of every sort were the daily trade in Philadelphia’s Tenderloin, the oldest part of town.’
Notes from Uzbekistan
Chinelo Okparanta
‘The cultural presentations of the students – that juxtaposition of old and new world, of tradition and modernity.’
