Presenting: THE BOOK OF FORM & EMPTINESS The unforgettable new novel from @TheBookerPrizes-shortlisted author of A Tale For the Time Being, Ruth Ozeki (@ozekiland). Pre-order via your local bookshop, or online at linktr.ee/thebook
Tattoos Helped Me Reclaim My Body After Years Of Trauma
Terri White, author of Coming Undone on how the pain and visibility of her tattoos helped her.
“Each tattoo was a fresh start. The needle that pounded and pricked, the ink that was dragged down into the dermis. My skin was reimagined, quite literally redrawn. When I looked in the mirror, when others looked at me, I was no longer the girl who was pared and peeled. I was the woman who said: ‘No more, never again. You won’t claim me, you can’t, because I’ve claimed myself.’”
Elle
Terri White has started a new Coming Undone podcast, named for her memoir, which is out in paperback tomorrow! In it she talks to people about their stories of struggle, and of putting themselves back together. The first episode is an interview with the Rev. Richard Coles. Download the podcast now, or listen on Spotify.
“It’s quite volatile, the photography scene [compared to] the canon in literature… the history of photography is always having to get written.”
Geoff Dyer in the Irish Times on his new book, See/Saw.
Irish Times
The Mauritanian is a new film starring Jodie Foster, Tahar Rahim and Benedict Cumberbatch, directed by Kevin Macdonald. It’s based on Guantánamo Diary, Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s unflinching account of his fourteen years of detention without charge in Guantánamo Bay.
Robert Webb – author of How Not to be a Boy, star of Peep Show and statistically half of Mitchell & Webb – talks about his debut novel, Come Again, out now in paperback!
‘“I would read an excerpt in Edinburgh and the idea of Mrs Death would be met with a cheer and a ‘yay!’. And exactly the same excerpt down in Bloomsbury [would have] everyone crying, me crying, big hugs at the end … What it has got me thinking is, I wonder if there is a geography of mourning, a geography of grief.” All the reactions are welcome, though. She still thinks one of the scariest things about death is that it is so often surrounded by silence.’
Taboo-busting poet Salena Godden talks to the Guardian about her debut novel Mrs Death Misses Death, missing performing and why Brits struggle to speak about her novel’s all too timely subject.
Katy Guest
Guardian
“You should read this collection at least twice. The first time, horse it into you—then study the technique.”
Naoise Dolan reviews That Old Country Music in The Stinging Fly.
The Stinging Fly
“One of the great Scottish crime writers is back”: The April Dead by Alan Parks is crime Book of the Month in The Times.
The Times
Imbolo Mbue Has Been Working Toward This Moment
“I would think to myself, why do some people rise up and fight while others do nothing?” she said. “Are people justified in doing anything and everything possible for the sake of justice? How do we balance our desire to fight for change against our desire to protect the ones we love? These are questions the characters have to deal with. I do not have answers — I much prefer to ask questions.”
Imbolo Mbue discusses her new novel How Beautiful We Were in the New York Times.
New York Times