5x15 March 2022
Monica Ali’s new novel, Love Marriage, is her first in a decade. Funny and poignant, sharp and sympathetic, it is a tour de force of storytelling that has won rave reviews. Centring on two young, engaged-to-be-married medics, Yasmin Ghorami and Joe Sangster, it is a clash of cultures story that explores who we are, how we love and how we can come to understand one another in today’s Britain. Monica Ali is the author of four previous novels including the Booker Prize shortlisted Brick Lane, 'Written with a wisdom and skill that few authors attain in a lifetime' (Sunday Times).
Clover Stroud is a writer and journalist, writing regularly for The Sunday Times, The Guardian and The Saturday and Sunday Telegraph, among others. She also hosts a popular podcast called Tiny Acts of Bravery. Her first book, The Wild Other, was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize. Her critically acclaimed second book, My Wild and Sleepless Nights: A Mother's Story, and third book, The Red of My Blood: A Death and Life Story, were instant Sunday Times bestsellers and rated 'best books of the year'. She is currently living in Washington DC with her husband and the youngest three of her five children. Her latest book, The Giant on the Skyline, is an inspiring memoir about home, family and belonging.
Osman Yousefzada was born in Birmingham to migrant parents who are illiterate in English and their mother tongue. He is an artist and designer who studied at SOAS and Central Saint Martins, and went on to obtain an MPhil at Cambridge University. He has exhibited at international institutions including the Whitechapel Gallery, Lahore Biennale, Dhaka Art Summit, V&A, IKON, and Cincinnati Art Museum. As well as being nominated for various fashion awards, he has been awarded the prestigious BFC New Generation award for three seasons. The Osman Yousefzada clothing line is sold internationally and is worn by celebrities including Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Lupita Nyong’o, Thandiwe Newton, Gwen Stefani, Emma Watson, Freida Pinto and many more. Osman edits The Collective, a journal featuring artists, writers and other creatives, and he has written articles for Vogue, The Guardian and The Observer.
Hannah Lowe was born in Ilford to an English mother and Jamaican-Chinese father. She has lived in London, Brighton and Santa Cruz, California. She studied American Literature at the University of Sussex and has a Masters degree in Refugee Studies, and a PhD in Creative Writing from Newcastle University. She has worked as a teacher of literature, and is now a lecturer in Creative Writing at Brunel University. She has been poet in residence at Keats House, and in 2020 she received a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors. Her third full collection of poems, The Kids (Bloodaxe Books, 2021), was the Poetry Book Society Choice for Autumn 2021. It won the 2021 Costa Poetry Award and went on to be named Costa Book of the Year, and was also shortlisted for the 2021 T.S. Eliot Prize.
Hannah Lowe taught for a decade in an inner-city London sixth form. At the heart of her award winning book of compassionate and energetic sonnets are fictionalised portraits of ‘The Kids’, the students she nurtured. But the poems go further, meeting her own child self as she comes of age in the riotous 80s and 90s, later bearing witness to her small son learning to negotiate contemporary London. Lowe interrogates the acts of teaching and learning with empathy and humour, exploring the universal experience of what it is to be taught, to learn and to teach.
‘Hannah Lowe’s The Kids is a book to fall in love with - it’s joyous, it’s warm and it’s completely universal. It’s crafted and skilful but also accessible... You will love it!’ - Reeta Chakrabarti, Chair of Judges, 2021 Costa Book of the Year
Kate Humble is a writer, smallholder, campaigner and one of the UK’s best-known TV presenters. She started her television career as a researcher, later presenting programmes such as Animal Park, Springwatch and Autumnwatch, Lambing Live, Living with Nomads, Extreme Wives, Back to the Land, A Country Life for Half the Price and Escape to the Farm. Her other books include Humble by Nature, Friend for Life, Thinking on My Feet, A Year of Living Simply and her first cookbook, Home Cooked. Thinking on My Feet was shortlisted for both the Wainwright Prize and the Edward Stanford Travel Memoir of the Year