Invisible Crowd

The Invisible Crowd

Wiles, Ellen

'A fierce, big-hearted novel.' Joe Treasure, author of The Book of Air'Pushes us to find our kinder selves.' Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, author of Harmless Like You'A wonderful book.' Maurice Wren, Chief Executive of the Refugee CouncilOne of the Guardian's Readers' Books of the YearLong listed for Not the Booker PrizeAwarded the Victor Turner Prize in 20182nd March 1975In Asmara, Eritrea, Yonas Kelati is born into a world of turmoil. At the same time, on the same day, Jude Munroe takes her first breath in London, England.Thirty Years LaterBlacklisted in his war-ravaged country, Yonas has no option but to flee his home. After a terrible journey, he arrives on a bleak English coast.By a twist of fate, Yonas' asylum case lands on Jude's desk. Opening the file, she finds a patchwork of witness statements from those who met Yonas along his journey: a lifetime the same length of hers, reduced to a few scraps of paper.Soon, Jude will stand up in court and tell Yonas' story. How she tells it will change his life forever.Fearless, uplifting and compelling, The Invisible Crowd is a powerful debut novel about loyalty, kindness - and the brief moments which define our lives.Amazon reviewers love The Invisible Crowd:'One of the best novels I've read this year.''I found myself absorbed from page one.''A delight to read while also being thought provoking and super relevant.''Beautifully crafted, emotionally resonant, I highly recommend it.''A debut novel with a huge heart.''The Invisible Crowd is compelling from the first page and will pull your heart kicking and screaming through the turmoil of finding a home, safety, and love.'

Literature & Fiction

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Genre Fiction

This book tells an ethnographic story of a secret literary culture that has recently emerged from its cocoon. Until 2012, Myanmar (also known as Burma) was ruled for fifty years by one of the most paranoid and repressive censorship regimes in history. The military junta enforced strict reading and writing restrictions in line with their ideology, feared writers' potential to trigger change, and did their best to keep Western books and influences out of the country. As part of an unexpected move toward democracy, the government has recently lifted the worst restrictions on reading and writing, giving rise to a new era in the country's literature and literary culture. While living in Myanmar in 2013, Ellen Wiles sought out the best of its contemporary writers and writing to begin uncovering the country's remarkable literary life and history. This book contains the experiences and recent output of nine Myanmar writers spanning three generations, featuring interviews and English-language translations of their work, along with political, legal, and artistic explorations. It includes men and women, fiction and poetry, reflecting the ripples of political and cultural change as they have moved across different groups and genres. A rare portrait of a people and place in transition, Wiles's work contributes both to the study of literature and culture in Myanmar and to the general study of art under censorship.

Saffron Shadows and Salvaged Scripts: Literary Life in Myanmar Under Censorship and in Transition

History & Criticism

Columbia University Press

This ground-breaking book explores the phenomenal growth of live literature in the digitalizing 21st century. Wiles asks why literary events appeal and matter to people, and how they can transform the ways in which fiction is received and valued. Readers are immersed in the experience of two contrasting events:&nbsp;a major literary festival and an intimate LGBTQ+ salon. Evocative scenes and observations are interwoven with sharp critical analysis and entertaining conversations with well-known author-performers, reader-audiences, producers, critics, and booksellers. Wiles's experiential literary ethnography represents an innovative and vital contribution, not just to literary research, but to research into the value of cultural experience across art forms. This book probes intersections between readers and audiences, writers and performers, texts and events, bodies and memories, and curation and reception. It addresses key literary debates from cultural appropriation to diversity in publishing, the effects of social media, and the quest for authenticity. It will engage a broad audience, from academics and producers to writers and audiences.

Live Literature: The Experience and Cultural Value of Literary Performance Events from Salons to Festivals (Palgrave Studies in Literary Anthropology)

Reference

PALGRAVE~MACMILLAN

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Books by Wiles, Ellen