7pm, Friday 16 October
Online, Free
Rosanna Amaka writes of people moving between worlds, and asks how we can heal and help each other – join her in conversation with Novelist Dr Sanjida O’Connell as they discuss Amaka’s irresistible and powerful debut novel: The Book Of Echoes.
1981: England looks forward to a new decade. But on the streets of Brixton, it’s hard to hold on to your dreams, especially if you are a young black man. Racial tensions rumble, and now Michael Watson might land in jail for a crime he did not commit.
Thousands of miles away, village girl Ngozi abandons her orange stall for the opportunity to work as a housemaid for a middle-class family.
From dusty tracks to gritty pavements, Ngozi and Michael’s journey towards a better life is strewn with heartache.
Join Dr Sanjida O’Connell in conversation with Rosana Amaka “an authentic new voice in British fiction.”
Rosanna Amaka began writing The Book Of Echoes 20 years ago to give voice to the Brixton community in which she grew up. Her community was fast disappearing as a result of gentrification, emigration back to the Caribbean and Africa, or simply with the passing away of the older generation. Its depiction of the unimaginable pain redeemed by love and hope was also inspired by a wish to understand the impact of history on present-day lives. The Book Of Echoes is Rosanna’s first novel.
You can find Rosanna’s book here.
Dr Sanjida O’Connell is the author of eight novels and four works of non-fiction. Her first psychological thriller, Bone By Bone, written under the pen name of Sanjida Kay, was an Amazon Kindle best-seller, longlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger Award and nominated as one of the best crime and thriller books of 2016 by the Guardian and the Sunday Express. She’s had three more psychological thrillers published by Corvus Books: The Stolen Child, My Mother’s Secret and One Year Later. Her third novel, originally published by John Murray, has just been republished as The Priest And The Lily. Sanjida has been shortlisted for the BBC Asia Awards, the Betty Trask Award for Romantic Fiction, the Daily Telegraph Science writer’s award, Asian Woman of the Year and was highly commended for BBC Wildlife magazine’s award for nature writing.
You can find Sanjida’s books here.