Pigeon English

Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman

Newly arrived from Ghana with his mother and older sister, eleven-year-old Harrison Opoku lives on the ninth floor of a block of flats on a London housing estate. The second best runner in the whole of Year 7, Harri races through his new life in his personalised trainers - the Adidas stripes drawn on with marker pen - blissfully unaware of the very real threat all around him. With equal fascination for the local gang - the Dell Farm Crew - and the pigeon who visits his balcony, Harri absorbs the many strange elements of his new life in England: watching, listening, and learning the tricks of inner-city survival. But when a boy is knifed to death on the high street and a police appeal for witnesses draws only silence, Harri decides to start a murder investigation of his own. In doing so, he unwittingly endangers the fragile web his mother has spun around her family to try and keep them safe. A story of innocence and experience, hope and harsh reality, Pigeon English is a spellbinding portrayal of a boy balancing on the edge of manhood and of the forces around him that try to shape the way he falls.

‘Simultaneously accurate and fantastical, this boy's love letter to the world made me laugh and tremble all the way throughPigeon English is a triumph' * Emma Donoghue, author of Room *
'Pigeon English is a book to fall in love with: a funny book, a true book, a shattering book' * Erica Wagner, The Times *
'Stephen Kelman's [first novel] has a powerful story, a pacy plot and engaging characters. It paints a vivid portrait with honesty, sympathy and wit, of a much neglected milieu, and it addresses urgent social questions. It is horrifying, tender and funny ... Brilliant' * Daily Telegraph *
'The humour, the resilience, the sheer ebullience of its narrator - a hero for our times - should ensure the book becomes, deservedly, a classic' * Daily Mail *

Stephen Kelman was born in Luton in 1976. After finishing his degree he worked variously as a warehouse operative, a careworker, and in marketing and local government administration. He decided to pursue his writing seriously in 2005, and has completed several feature screenplays since then. Pigeon English is his first novel; he is currently working on his second.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781408826140
ISBN 10	1408826143
Title	Pigeon English
Author	Stephen Kelman
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Year published	2012-01-05
Number of pages	288
Prizes	Short-listed for Desmond Elliott Prize 2011, Short-listed for Galaxy National Book Awards: Galaxy New Writer of the Year 2011, Short-listed for Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2011
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable