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The debut work of non-fiction by award-winning slam poet Vanessa Kisuule, this is a love letter to the musicians we adore and an unflinching look at the costs of hero worship
Vanessa Kisuule is a big Michael Jackson fan. This fixation once gave her great joy, but now it keeps her up at night. In her bracingly honest, energetic and lively book she explores the fall-out from that fandom and how, or if, we can hold people to account whilst loving them at the same time.
Why do famous musicians mean so much to us? How does the pop culture machine both mirror and magnify the worst aspects of human nature? Why is it so hard to accept that the people we love, famous or not, are capable of doing terrible things?
As debates rage on about abusive public figures, Kisuule asks not just if we should separate the art from the artist, but how this moral conundrum informs the way we shape our relationships, families and notions of social justice. Witty, poetic and with references to R. Kelly, Britney Spears and a host of other famous faces, Neverland is both an ardent love letter to the music we love and an unflinching look at the costs of hero worship.
“One of the most interesting writers at work in this country today. An exhilarating stylist and a beautiful thinker”
Max Porter
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”Neverland is a brutal, brave and beautifully written book that asks uncomfortable questions and exposes uncomfortable truths. As we follow Kisuule’s conflicted journey, we are forced to unpack our own relationship with celebrity and fandom from a perspective rarely seen. Nuanced, necessary and will start many conversations”
Yomi Adegoke
”Neverland is what I hope for every time I open a book of non-fiction: it’s knotty, curious, compassionate and unsurprisingly poetic. I am so grateful for Kisuule’s willingness to write into the grey areas, to encourage us to think more expansively about social rot and how it calcifies, and to imagine what freedom might look like”
Pandora Sykes
“With razor-sharp insight and lyrical beauty, Kisuule pulls back the curtain on the allure and the anguish of loving an artist whose brilliance is shadowed by controversy. This book doesn’t just tell a story – it grips you, challenging you to confront the complexities of hero worship and the deep, often conflicting emotions that come with it – and absolute must-read”
Caleb Femi
“In Neverland Vanessa Kisuule turns the intense, passionate gaze of the fan away from her object and back onto herself. Rather than asking the question can I still love this personal canonical figure in the knowledge of the harms they perpetrated?, Kisuule explores what we can learn about ourselves through our fandom. It’s thrilling and rare to read a writer going at this inquiry with her teeth”
Amy Key
Vanessa Kisuule
Vanessa Kisuule is a writer, performer and facilitator based in Bristol. She has won over ten poetry slam titles and performed nationally and internationally. She has worked with the BBC, British Library, Tate, Royal Academy of Arts, Bristol Old Vic and Glastonbury Festival. She was the Bristol City Poet for 2018–2020, wrote and presented The Poetry Detective for Radio 4 and has two poetry collections with Burning Eye Books. She is the co-tutor for the Southbank New Poets Collective alongside Will Harris. Neverland is her debut non-fiction book.
vanessakisuule.com | @Vanessa_Kisuule