Pigeon English & Man on Fire
Aug 2015 · Bloomsbury Publishing
Ebook
608
Pages
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About this ebook
For the first time the complete works of the Booker- and Guardian-shortlisted author Stephen Kelman are collected together in one digital box set.
In Kelman's first novel, Pigeon English, Kelman narrates the powerful and unforgettable tale of Harrison Opoku. Newly arrived from Ghana with his mother and older sister, Harri 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 in marker pen – unaware of the threat growing around him. 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 breaks the fragile web his mother has spun around her family to keep them safe and Harri will come face to face with the very real danger surrounding him.
Man on Fire is a powerful and touching story of faith, forgiveness and second chances. John Lock has come to Mumbai to meet his destiny. He has fled the quiet desperation of his life in England to offer his help to a man who has learned to conquer pain, a world-record breaker who specialises in feats of extreme endurance and ill-advised masochism. Bibhuti Nayak's next record attempt – to have fifty baseball bats broken over his body – will set the seal on a career that has seen him rise from poverty to become a minor celebrity in India's city of dreams. But, as they take their leap of faith together, John learns more about life, and death, and everything in between than he had ever bargained for.
In Kelman's first novel, Pigeon English, Kelman narrates the powerful and unforgettable tale of Harrison Opoku. Newly arrived from Ghana with his mother and older sister, Harri 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 in marker pen – unaware of the threat growing around him. 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 breaks the fragile web his mother has spun around her family to keep them safe and Harri will come face to face with the very real danger surrounding him.
Man on Fire is a powerful and touching story of faith, forgiveness and second chances. John Lock has come to Mumbai to meet his destiny. He has fled the quiet desperation of his life in England to offer his help to a man who has learned to conquer pain, a world-record breaker who specialises in feats of extreme endurance and ill-advised masochism. Bibhuti Nayak's next record attempt – to have fifty baseball bats broken over his body – will set the seal on a career that has seen him rise from poverty to become a minor celebrity in India's city of dreams. But, as they take their leap of faith together, John learns more about life, and death, and everything in between than he had ever bargained for.
About the author
Stephen Kelman was born in Luton in 1976. Pigeon English, his first novel, was shortlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize, the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Guardian First Book Award, and he was also shortlisted for the New Writer of the Year Award at the 2011 Galaxy National Book Awards. Pigeon English is a set text on the GCSE syllabus. Stephen lives in St Albans.
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