 | |
| Author | Stephen Kelman |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Published | 2011 (Bloomsbury Publishing) |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 288 |
| ISBN | 978-1408815687 |
Pigeon English is the debut novel by English author Stephen Kelman. It is told from the point of view of Harrison Opoku, an eleven-year-old Ghanaian immigrant living on a tough London estate. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2011.
The novel begins with the death of a young boy on the fictional Dell Farm estate in an unspecified area of London. Harrison Opoku or 'Harri', is a recent Ghanaian immigrant living with his mother and older sister, Lydia. His father, younger sister and grandparents still live in Ghana, though they hope to move in the future. He becomes an amateur detective and tries to solve the murder of a boy who was murdered outside of a fast food restaurant. His experiences also illustrate the problems of gang warfare, immigration to the United Kingdom and poverty. As well as investigating the murder with his best friend Dean, Harrison shares with the reader his thoughts, impressions and experiences of growing up in an environment beset with pressures and threats. The novel explores his attempts to remain good despite the corrupting forces around him. Harrison then befriends a pigeon, which narrates part of the book.
Eventually, he traces the murderers as a gang of teenagers, only to be murdered at the end.
It was first published in March 2011 by Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom.
The novel was critically acclaimed on publication [1] and was shortlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize. [2] It went on to be shortlisted for ten awards, including the Guardian First Book Award, Desmond Elliott Prize, and Galaxy National Book Award. The book became a bestseller, and has featured in a national campaign launched by the National Literacy Trust and the Booker Prize Foundation to encourage prisoners to read. [3] It is also widely studied in schools and universities.
The novel is being adapted into a play by Fringe First winner Gbolahan Obisesan. The play is a co-commission between Bristol Old Vic Young Company and National Youth Theatre, and is directed by Miranda Cromwell. [4] The play performed at the Bristol Old Vic and 2013 Edinburgh Festival. [5]
The Booker Prize, formerly known as the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a literary prize awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. The winner of the Booker Prize receives international publicity which usually leads to a sales boost. When the prize was created, only novels written by Commonwealth, Irish, and South African citizens were eligible to receive the prize; in 2014 it was widened to any English-language novel—a change that proved controversial.
Owen Sheers is a Welsh poet, author, playwright and television presenter. He was the first writer in residence to be appointed by any national rugby union team.
James Kelman is a Scottish novelist, short story writer, playwright and essayist. His novel A Disaffection was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 1989. Kelman won the 1994 Booker Prize with How Late It Was, How Late. In 1998, Kelman was awarded the Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award. His 2008 novel Kieron Smith, Boy won both of Scotland's principal literary awards: the Saltire Society's Book of the Year and the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year.
Paul Reynolds is an English actor, well known for portraying Colin Mathews in Press Gang (1989–1993), Kelvin Raine in Maisie Raine (1998) and convicted police murderer Chris Craig in Let Him Have It (1991).
Mark Andrew Watson is a British comedian and novelist.
The Secret River is a 2005 historical novel by Kate Grenville about an early 19th-century Englishman transported to Australia for theft. The story explores what might have happened when Europeans colonised land already inhabited by Aboriginal people. The book has been compared to Thomas Keneally's The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith and to Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang for its style and historical theme.
John Retallack is a British playwright and director.
David Farr is a British writer, theatrical director and Associate Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Stephen Kelman is an English novelist, who grew up on Marsh Farm council estate in Luton. He studied marketing at the University of Bedfordshire, then worked variously as a warehouse operative, as a caseworker, and in marketing and local government administration.
The Roving Party is a 2011 novel written by Tasmanian author Rohan Wilson. Wilson's first book, it is published by Allen & Unwin. The Roving Party won the 2011 Vogel Award. The novel was also shortlisted for the 2011 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction.
Kelman is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
The Waterstones 11 was a literary book prize aimed at promoting debut authors, run and curated by British bookseller Waterstones. It ran from 2011–13. The list of 11 authors are selected from a list of 100 authors submitted by publishers. The prize, established in 2011, has included Orange Prize winner Tea Obreht's novel The Tiger's Wife, Man Booker Prize nominee Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman and the winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize for New Fiction, The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen.
Sabrina Mahfouz is a British-Egyptian poet, playwright, performer and writer from South London, England. Her published work includes poetry, plays and contributions to several anthologies.
Amy Mason is a British comedian, novelist and theatre maker from Bristol, England. Her debut novel The Other Ida won the 2014 Dundee International Book Prize.
Brian Vernel is a Scottish actor best known for his film role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and as the character Odda the Younger in the TV series The Last Kingdom and Billy Wallace in Gangs of London.
Gbolahan Obisesan is a British Nigerian writer and director. He is the Artistic Director at Brixton House theatre. He has served as a Genesis Fellow and Associate Director at the Young Vic.
Alys Conran is a Welsh writer. Her debut novel Pigeon won the Wales Book of the Year in 2017.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is a 2009 mystery novel by Olga Tokarczuk. Originally published in Polish by Wydawnictwo Literackie, it was later translated to English by Antonia Lloyd-Jones and published in 2018 by the British independent publisher Fitzcarraldo Editions. The book received a wider release in 2019 when it was published in the United States by Riverhead Books on 13 August 2019. A portion of the English translation was originally published in literary magazine Granta in 2017.
Imran Mahmood is a British novelist and barrister. His first novel You Don't Know Me (2017), which was shortlisted for the Glass Bell Award in 2018, was dramatised by the BBC in 2021.