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list price: $10.99
edition:eBook
category: Fiction
published: Mar 2011
ISBN:9781770890237
publisher:
House of Anansi Press Inc
imprint:
Anansi International
Description
"Pigeon English is a triumph." -- Emma Donoghue, author of Room
Shortlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize and the 2011 Guardian First Book Award
Eleven-year-old Harrison Opoku is the second best runner in the whole of Year 7. Harri races through his new life in England in his Adidas trainers - blissfully unaware of the threats around him. With equal fascination for the local gang - the Dell Farm Crew - and the pigeon who visits his balcony, Harri absorbs the many strange elements of his new home: watching, listening, and learning the tricks of inner-city survival. But when a boy is knifed to death, Harri starts a murder investigation of his own and endangers the fragile web his mother has spun around her family to keep them safe.
A story of innocence and experience, hope and harsh reality, Pigeon English is a superb portrayal of a boy balancing on the edge of manhood and of the forces around him that try to shape who he becomes.
Awards
- Long-listed, IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
- Short-listed, Man Booker Prize for Fiction
- Commended, Toronto Star Reviewers' Top 100 Books
- Short-listed, Desmond Elliott Prize
- Short-listed, Guardian First Book Award
Editorial Reviews
Stephen Kelman’s [first novel] has a powerful story, a pacy plot and engaging characters. It paints a vivid portrait with honesty, sympathy and wit, of a much neglected milieu, and it addresses urgent social questions. It is horrifying, tender and funny. [. . .] Pigeon English will be read by millions.
— Telegraph
. . . exceptional . . . Opoku’s plight is both heart-warming and heartbreaking.
— The List
. . . chilling and charming . . . [Pigeon English is] a coming-of-age tale that feels achingly accurate.
— Globe and Mail
Harrison Opoku, the 11-year-old Ghanaian boy who is the narrator of this very fine coming-of-age novel, may well be about to take his place among other well-loved children in literature. [. . .] To be moved to care this deeply for a fictional character is a rare experience.
— Winnipeg Free Press
Most novels aren’t as imaginative, gut-wrenching and powerful as Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman, and this one is Kelman’s first. It’s immediately engaging, and it doesn’t let go. [. . .] Pigeon English is an amazing novel. It’s a window on a world many of us will never experience (thankfully), and it is beautifully and intelligently written.
— Edmonton Journal
[Stephen Kelman] took a real-life knife murder of an immigrant boy a decade ago as his starting point, but the youth he created is distinctly and wonderfully his own.
— Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Told with humour, despite the gritty subject matter and setting...Pigeon English charms its way into some hard places...
— Financial Times
... a topical novel with a great narrative voice ... the ending will crush you.
— Uptown Winnipeg
Kelman has created an endearing character at once foreign yet familiar . . . Pigeon English is a mesmerizing tale of naïveté and discovery that has us rooting on the sidelines, hoping that Harri will triumph.
— Rover Arts
A violent and riveting coming of age story, Stephen Kelman's debut novel also contains well-timed moments of comedy, affecting family drama, and just enough hopefulness to dilute the setting's biting flavour of despair.
— Vancouver Sun
Few writers nail a voice as well as Stephen Kelman does ...
— Geez Magazine
. . . riveting . . .
— Christian Science Monitor
. . . engaging . . . Kelman's dead-on evocation of the horrors and freedoms of an inner-city childhood deserves attention.
— Telegraph
. . . something of a phenomenon . . .
— Buffalo News
Filled with energy, humour and compassion, Pigeon English is a gut-wrenchingly sad novel that makes you laugh out loud.
— Guardian
Pigeon English convincingly evokes life on the edge as lived by many British children today; the humour, the resilience, the sheer ebullience of its narrator -- a hero for our times -- should ensure the book becomes, deservedly, a classic.
— Daily Mail
. . . an authentic and audacious first novel . . . It will be a while before the buzz about [Kelman] dies down.
— Scotsman
Kelman blends Ghanaian slang such as "Asweh" ("I swear") and "hutious" ("frightening") with familiar London-ese to fresher and funnier effect. [. . .] Pigeon English does an admirable job of revealing the frightened teenage boys behind gang members' tough facades.
— Guardian
Kelman has crafted a book that soars.
— Chronicle Herald
. . . a tour de force . . . Funny and poignant, Pigeon English is fired with an uncontainable spirit, a rare distillate of boyhood optimism and adult wisdom.
— Maclean's
. . . a very impressive debut . . .
— Toronto Star
