More Event Announcements!

You know the old saying ‘You wait for Gloucester Road Books to announce their first event of the year, and then three come along at once’?

We have two exciting new events scheduled for February & March, both for books published by outstanding small presses.

Tickets and more info are available in store or from our website here.

It’s 1907; three lads set off for Lublin, the market town of dreams.Elya is the lad with the vision, and Elya has the map. Ziv and Kiva aren’t so sure. The water may run out before they find the Village of Lakes. The food may run out before the flaky crescent pastries of Prune Town. They may never reach the Village of Girls (how disappointing); they may well stumble into Russian Town, rumoured to be a dangerous place for Jews (it is). As three young boys set off from Mezritsh with a case of bristle brushes to sell in the great market town of Lublin, wearing shoes of uneven quality and possessed of decidedly unequal enthusiasms, they quickly find that nothing, not Elya’s jokes nor Kiva’s prayers nor Ziv’s sublime irritatingness, can prepare them for the future as it comes barrelling down to meet them.

Absurd, riveting, alarming, hilarious, the dialogue devastatingly sharp and the pacing extraordinary, Lublin is a journey to nowhere that changes everything it touches.

Manya Wilkinson is a Jewish New Yorker living in Newcastle, where she was senior lecturer in prose and scriptwriting at Newcastle University. She’s the author of a novel, Ocean Avenue, several short stories, and many plays and radio dramas which have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4, Afternoon Play, Saturday Drama, Writing the Century and Woman’s Hour.

‘A true boy’s own adventure with a deep heart set against a backdrop of ferocious world events, Lublin will charm and devastate readers in equal measure with its compulsive, funny and moving prose. Manya Wilkinson has given us a fable-like story whose characters live and breathe through the ages to speak to us of childhood dreams and the inequities of war today.’ – Preti Taneja

‘Lublin has a truly individual flavour. Beautifully written, well-paced, rhythmical, sad, funny. It was a real pleasure to read it.’ – David Almond

‘Wilkinson is a superb comic writer. She’s also gifted in startling poetic compression, turning on a sixpence to move into moments of horror and prophecy. Reading Lublin, you have to laugh; you want to look away from what follows, but you can’t.’ – Sean O’Brien

‘Told against the engulfing dark of the 20th century, Lublin glitters with beauty, comedy and compassion. A glorious, ringing and resonating book by a master storyteller.’ – Jacob Polley

‘Mercurial, hilarious, terrifying, a sustained song to the lost, Lublin is a masterpiece. Prepare to be enchanted.’ – Sinéad Morrissey

Tickets and further info are available in store or from our website here.

Elisa’s debut novel, Winter in Sokcho, won the the Prix Robert Walser, the Prix Régine Desforges, the 2021 National Book Award for Translated Literature and was shortlisted for the 2021 Scott Moncreiff Prize. Her second novel, The Pachinko Parlour, was awarded the Swiss Literature Prize.

Elisa’s atmospheric style has garnered her a growing readership and rave reviews, and we’re thrilled to be welcoming her to the shop to hear more about her work.

Nathalie arrives at the circus in Vladivostok, Russia, fresh out of art college in Geneva. She is there to design the costumes for a trio of artists who are due to perform one of the most dangerous acts of all: the Russian Bar.

As winter approaches, the season at Vladivostok winds down, the windy port city deserted as performers head home; all except the Russian bar trio and their manager. They are scheduled to perform at a festival in Ulan Ude, just before Christmas.

What ensues is an intimate and beguiling account of four people learning to work with and trust one another. This is a book about the delicate balance that must be achieved when flirting with death in such spectacular fashion. Set against the backdrop of a cloudy ocean, Vladivostok Circus explores collaboration, creativity and belonging, all the while immersing the reader in Dusapin’s trademark dreamlike prose.

Franco-Korean writer, Elisa Shua Dusapin was born in France in 1992 and raised in Paris, Seoul and Switzerland. Winter in Sokcho (trans. Aneesa Abbas Higgins), her first novel was published in 2016 to widespread acclaim and won numerous awards. It has been translated into six languages. Her second novel, The Pachinko Parlour (trans. Aneesa Abbas Higgins), won the Swiss Literature Prize. Elisa has also written for the theatre and currently lives in Switzerland.

‘Dusapin’s beautiful prose, with imagery both metallic and mineral, insinuates its way towards a delicate empathy between the generations, as well as examining the confusion that comes with dual nationality, and the lifetime loss that is exile.’ Irish Times

‘Atmospheric, exquisitely written and highly charged.’ Olivia Sudjic

‘Fragmentation, recurring imagery and a flair for evoking atmosphere so effective that lassitude seems to seep through the pages recalls Deborah Levy’s writing.’ Guardian

‘Narrated in an elegant, enigmatic voice that skilfully summons the tenderness and mutability of an inner life.’ Sharlene Teo

‘Dusapin has a rare and ferocious gift for pinning the quick, slippery, liveness of feeling to the page: her talent is a thrill to behold.’ Alexandra Kleeman

‘I haven’t encountered a voice like this since Duras – spellbinding.’ ELLE (France)

‘An exquisite, cinematic novel not afraid of subtlety. I looked forward to reading it at night, to spending time… in her pleasing sentences, which I can still hear in my mind.’ Amina Cain

‘full of delicacy and melancholy . . . sprinkled with meticulous touches.’ Le Monde