“My mother had not believed in friendships among women. She said women weren’t to be trusted. Keep your arm out, she said. And keep women a whole other hand away from the farthest tips of your fingernails. She told me to keep my nails long.” Another Brooklyn is short yet vibrant novella. August, a Black […]
More“Your eyes meet in the silence. The gaze requires no words at all. It is an honest meeting.” Open Water is an exceedingly lyrical debut. The story, narrated through a second-person perspective (ie ‘you’) is centred on the relationship between two Black British artists (he is a photographer, she is a dancer). Although their relationship […]
MoreAt Night All Blood is Black is a short yet certainly not breezy read. David Diop’s novel reads very much like the increasingly feverish confession of a man whose every-day reality is permeated by violence. He is both victim and perpetrator, cognisant of the violence that dominates his life yet somehow unwilling to truly consider […]
More“She was of that special age where she knew both nothing and everything, and no matter where or at whom she looked, she saw her own reflecting glimmering back like a skim of oil. She could be anyone, still.” Milk Blood Heat is a promising debut, one that I’m sure will be well-received by readers […]
More“It’s best to start with the beginning—or at least what feels like it. I realise now that we never much talked about our pasts. Maybe it would changed something if we had, maybe we would have understood each other better and everything would have been different. Who can say?” Swimming in the Dark is a […]
More“They say you don’t remember early stuff, that you’re just suddenly six and having your first memories. But that’s not true.” At its heart Red at the Bone is a novel about familial relationships. The story opens in 2001 during sixteen-year-old Melody’s ‘introduction’ to society. We soon learn that she is the product of a […]
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