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Category Archives: Blog
The Terrible Thing That Happened To Barnaby Brocket
This is the jacket for THE TERRIBLE THING THAT HAPPENED TO BARNABY BROCKET, which will be published in the UK, Ireland and Australia/NZ on August 2nd. The jacket is designed by Oliver Jeffers, who has also provided the illustrations for inside the book.
Here’s what the book is about:
“There’s nothing unusual about the Brockets. Boring, respectable and fiercely proud of it, Alistair and Eleanor Brocket turn up their noses at anyone strange or different. But from the moment Barnaby Brocket comes into the world, it’s clear he’s anything but normal. To the horror and shame of his parents, Barnaby appears to defy the laws of gravity – and floats.
Little Barnaby is a lonely child – after all, it’s hard to make friends when you’re ten feet in the air. Desperate to please his parents, he does his best to stop floating, but he just can’t do it. Then, one fateful day, Barnaby’s mother decides enough is enough. She never asked for a weird, abnormal, floating child. She’s sick and tired of the newspapers prying and the neighbours gossiping. Barnaby has to go . . .
Betrayed, frightened and alone, Barnaby floats into the path of a very special hot air balloon. And so begins a magical journey around the world; from South America to New York, Canada to Ireland, and even a trip into space, Barnaby meets a cast of truly extraordinary new friends and realises that nothing can make you happier than just being yourself.”
You can pre-order Barnaby from Amazon and Waterstone’s.
Galle Literary Festival
First post of 2012! And the first festival of the year too. To Galle, in the Southern Province of Sri Lanka, for the 6th annual Galle Literary Festival. Leaving aside the beauty of the environment and the friendliness of the people this has been a wonderful festival to kick off the year.
I did 4 events here, one reading from The Absolutist at the Paddy Fields, one reading from Mutiny On The Bounty at Mama’s Rooftop Cafe, one discussing The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas at Hall de Galle and finally to the children’s programme for Noah Barleywater Runs Away.
4 days of sunshine, enthusiastic crowds and great writers – among them Tom Stoppard, DBC Pierre, Joanna Trollope, Richard Dawkins.
Body of Work
Last night I attended the launch party in London for BODY OF WORK, an anthology of writing edited by Giles Foden to celebrate 40 years of the creative writing M.A. at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, to which I have contibuted an essay.
I was a student on the course during ’94/’95 and returned as Writing Fellow a decade later in ’04/’05, while I was editing the book that became The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas. It was one of the extraordinary, difficult, enjoyable, painful, creative, emotional years of my life but, of the 12 students on the course, four went on to be full time novelists with a lot of books to their name: Richard Beard, Janette Jenkins, Toby Litt and I.
Writers from many different years of the course have contributed essays to this new anthology, exploring our experiences of Norwich, of UEA, of the creative writing course and of how it helped us (or not) in our pursuit of publication, including Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro, Anne Enright, Rose Tremain, Glenn Patterson, Andrew Miller, Joe Dunthorne, Jane Harris – and me.
It’s available to order from Full Circle Editions, Waterstone’s and Amazon.
Antwerp
Backstage at Antwerp with my interviewer before the 2nd leg of the Crossing Border festival. I was speaking about DE WITTE VEER / THE ABSOLUTIST.
Crossing Border Festival
Another weekend, another trip. This time to Holland and Belgium for the Crossing Border festival, a neat little fest that zips between The Hague one night and Antwerp the next. Writers and musicians gather, do their thing, then shuttle off together to the next city
Istanbul Book Fair
Hello blog readers! So here I am in Istanbul, Turkey, for the annual Istanbul Book Fair. I’ve never been to Turkey before so it’s a real treat to get to visit, courtesy of my Turkish children’s publisher Tudem, who publish ‘Boy’ and ‘Noah’. (‘The House of Special Purpose is also available in Turkish, courtesy of Dogan publishing house.)
Book fairs are a funny business. Very different from literary festivals, where I get to hang out with readers and writers all the time. At book fairs, you spend a long time at the publishing stand signing books and doing interviews, which is all very well, but you also get to run around the (massive) halls and look at the jackets for books and authors you like in their foreign translations. I’m fascinated by jacket design so this is always fun.
Postcards From The Edge
The Ireland Literature Exchange has produced a series of 8 postcards, each featuring an Irish writer, with photography by Richard Gilligan. The writers are John Banville, Sebastian Barry, Marina Carr, Anne Enright, Hugo Hamilton, Claire Kilroy, Colm Toibin and me. And I think they’re very good! The launch was Wednesday night.
Noah Barleywater on the Carnegie
Very pleased that NOAH BARLEYWATER RUNS AWAY has been longlisted for the 2012 Carnegie Medal, the most prestigious award in children’s publishing in the UK. I was previously longlisted in 2007 for The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas. The full longlist can be seen here.
More from the Helsinki Book Fair
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- With my Finnish translator Laura Buck
Helsinki Book Fair
I’m in Helsinki for the next few days, courtesy of my Finnish publisher Bazar, to attend the Helsinki Book Fair where I will be giving interviews, readings and doing various bits of promotion for the recently published TARKOIN VARTIOITU TALO (The House of Special Purpose) and NOOA NOTKONIITTY KARKAA KOTOA (Noah Barleywater Runs Away).
If you happen to be in Helsinki and would like to hear one of the readings, public interviews or just get your book signed, check out the times on the website.
