Picador New Voices of 2024 Event

I was delighted to be invited to Picador’s 2024 New Voices night hosted by Communications Executive Kieran Sangha in the Pan Macmillan offices in Farringdon. Ten new authors being published next year were introduced and spoke both in person and virtually about their upcoming books. The list included an array of fiction and non-fiction titles and I’m particularly excited to read Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr!, Elizabeth O’Connor’s Whale Fall, August Thompson’s Anyone’s Ghost and Nicolas Lunabba’s Will You Care If I Die?.

Kaveh Akbar’s debut looks to be an electric and psychologically thrilling novel where protagonist Cyrus, a young poet, becomes obsessed with suicide and martyrdom, researching historical figures such as Joan of Arc and Bobby Sands, in a quest to make sure he does not waste his own death. On screen Akbar read an extract of the novel, where the protagonist travels to Brooklyn to meet an artist who is creating a performance of their death through their suffering of cancer. I’m excited to read such a psychologically challenging and most likely controversial debut.

Elizabeth O’Connor animated her debut novel Whale Fall in describing how she came to depict Manod, a teenager living on an island off of the coast of Wales, where her home is slowly becoming uninhabitable. O’Connor explained that her interest in coastal landscapes began through her background as an academic, having completed a P.h.D exploring H. D.’s writings of coastal landscapes. I was interested in O’Connor’s discussions of the ways in which class can shape one’s relationship with a landscape, often becoming dichotomised as a place of labour or one of leisure. I knew I had to read the book after O’Connor read a beautiful narrative extract describing a coastal landscapes from the novel.

August Thompson’s first novel Anyone’s Ghost follows the love and lives of queer couple Jake and Theron. Thompson explained how the novel is staged around three literal car crashes which drastically shape the couple’s fate, the first occurring when Jake is 15 and Theron 17. Thompson gave an extremely touching and heartfelt explanation for why he flet he needed to write the novel – when he was growing up and grappling with both his sexuality and feelings of grief, he could not find the right book in which to could confide in and relate to. Hopefully the novel will serve as a lesson in love and loss, reaching those who are in need of it.

I was pleased to take home a copy of Swedish, former social worker, Nicholas Lunabba’s Will You Care If I Die? – a memoir translated from Swedish consisting of letters written by Nicholas to Elijah, a boy he was working with and subsequently welcomed into his own home. The memoir explores both the difficulties which the young people living in Malmo in Sweden face, and Lunabba’s own personal struggles with himself. I was impressed by Lunabba’s ability to encapsulate the consequences of class divide so succinctly in the opening chapters. The book is already a hit in Sweden and I’m excited to see it introduced to UK readers.

The evening was truly brilliant, creating a communion of booksellers, authors, publishers and agents to celebrate Picador’s emerging authors. Thank you to Picador for the invitation and proof which I’m very excited to read.