one writes to be read so what better recognition than popularity be it 'popular' or 'intellectual' !
I'll begin with Margaret Atwood the author of A Handmaid's Tale a Canadian poet , novelist, literary critic , feminist and activist and now fighting for environmental issues .
A.S.Byatt or Dame A.S.Byatt as she should be known , is next on the list and her younger sister , Margaret Drabble who likewise is a Dame . They were both awarded the CBE and DBE ( Commander of the order of the British Empire and Dame .... )
Then comes J.K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame , one of the richest writers around today !
Who says artists are only recognised posthumously ? !!!
Rachel Cusk , classed as one of the twenty best young British novelists , is next . She was born in 1967 and deals with such subjects as family , motherhood , parenthood and life's transformations .
Nicola Barker , a writer of fiction and shortstories has been shortlisted six times for literary prizes several of which she has won . The last one being the Ondaatje Prize this year . She often treats the themes of the unloved and unlovable the ugly and inept .
Kate Atkinson's Behind the Scenes at the Museum which won the Whitbread Book of the year prize should be given a mention here . This is her first novel and tells the story of a Yorkshire family , the births , deaths and marriages in quite a humorous way in some places .
The Other Side of Truth is a very interesting novel by Beverley Naidoo who ,born in South Africa , began writing once in exile in England . This novel has the resonance of the execution of the Nigerian writer Ken Saro-Wiwa whilst at the same time giving a fast and vivid account of a family's flight from threat and murder seen through the eyes of twelve-year-old Sade and her ten-year-old brother Femi . This is a wonderfully accessible story laced with powerful messages of family commitment and human rights . An easy interesting read which should please many of you .
What about Sophie Kinsella of Shopaholic fame ? Once again light , fun and breezy .
You can even log into her Facebook or download podcasts , so she can't be all bad !!!!
My favorites of this summer however are the following four . The second generation Jamaican author Zadie Smith . I say Jamaican but her father was British , her mother Jamaican from Brent , a working class area in North London . White Teeth is the novel she is known for and which won her the Whitbread first Novel Award a few years ago . She has since written others including The Authograph Man and On Beauty which are equally as entertaining and stimulating .
Monica Ali , born to a Bangladeshi father and British mother was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2003 among other awards for Brick Lane . There has since been a lot of controversy around the way she depicted the people of this lane , which exists in London . An extract of her novel was used a few years ago in the Bac STG if I remember rightly taking about Chanu and Nazreen , a couple whose arranged marriage is put into jeopardy and traditional certainties thrown into chaos when the younger wife meets someone else .
Kiran Desai was awarded the Man Booker Prize for her novel The Inheritance of Loss in 2006 .Of Indian origin , her mother Anita Desai of German mother and Bengali father is a writer too , she is a permanent resident of the States .
Watch this part ( 2/3 from You Tube ) of an interview to find out about her book and what she's like .
However my best read is definitely Andrea Levy's Small Island . Andrea Levy was born in England to Jamaican parents and is the author of Every Light in the House Burnin, Never far from Nowhere , Fruit of the Lemon and the last for which she was awarded an Arts Council Writer's Award and the 2004 Orange Prize for fiction .
Small Island is the story of Queenie Bligh and her English husband Bernard and their Jamaican lodgers Gilbert and Hortense Joseph . It is set in England for the main part in 1948 when the country is recovering from the WW2 . But at 21 Nevern Street the conflict has only just begun .
Queenie took in lodgers because her husband had not come back from the war . Gilbert Joseph was one of the several thousand Jamaican men who joined the RAF to fight against Hitler . Returning to England as a civilian he finds himself treated very differently . His wife too has always longed to leave Jamaica and teach in London . However when she joins him she is shocked to find London shabby , decrepit , and far from the city of her dreams . Even Gilbert is not the man she thought he was .
Through the four voices of the main characters we learn also about the bad treat of the AfroAmerican soldiers the segregation and discrimination of the GIs by other GIs . Bernard's war experience is quite horrific too yet ironical at the same time . The novel illuminates a little known or talked about aspect of recent British history with wit and wisdom. It is altogether a compassionate account of the problems of postwar immigration, an epic book which brings the patois of Jamaicans alive , fills the world of war-torn London with amazing detail and is a great history lesson about the era when England changed forever as migrants braved bitter racism to flood her shores .
As said in Newsweek ' A beautifully crafted , compassionate novel , well worth reading ' and I fully agree . To finish , watch this interview of Andrea Levy from You Tube .
Try her site too
">Linkhttp://www.andrealevy.co.uk/
For further information about any of these authors and many more you should try the following sites :
">Linkhttp://www.womenshistory.about.com/
">Linkhttp://www.contemporarywriters.com/
