| Black Bag follows a hard-up actor as he lands the starring role in a university professor’s psychological experiment. The role involves him sitting at the back of a series of lectures, zipped up and hidden away in an oversized bag. As the experiment progresses, the actor’s childhood friend and flatmate plots a very 2020s-style moneymaking opportunity which brings chewy dilemmas about, amongst other things, masculinity, the economic model’s extremes and human interaction out into the open. As do the actor’s increasingly intimate encounters with another professor at the same university.
Join Luke as he reveals all about this gloriously unfettered, riotus and heartening tale.
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“Such a smart and philosophical novel really has no business being this entertaining. Black Bag is hilarious, profound, tender and deranged.” Anna Metcalfe
“Black Bag is a masterpiece from one of the best writers at work today. In his endlessly quotable prose, Kennard explores modern masculinity with compassion and brutal honesty, warmth and despair.” Joe Dunthorne
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Luke Kennard is an award-winning poet and novelist; he also lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham. In 2014 he was named one of the ‘Next Generation Poets’ by the Poetry Book Society in their once-per-decade list. Hie poetry and fiction have won or been nominated for numerous prizes including the International Dylan Thomas Prize, the Forward Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize.
Stefan Mohamed is an award-winning author, poet, performer and creative writing tutor based in Bristol. He is the author of five novels and four books of poetry, with a fifth forthcoming in 2026. He also DJs. |
