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Pigeon English
Written by Stephen Kelman
- Shortlisted
- The Man Booker Prize 2011
- Published by Bloomsbury
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Stephen Kelman’s spellbinding portrayal of a boy balancing on the edge of manhood, and the forces around him that try to shape the way he falls
Eleven-year-old Harrison Opoku lives in a block of flats on an inner-city estate. From his ninth floor balcony, Harri absorbs the strange elements of his new life in England: watching, listening, and learning the tricks of survival. When a boy is knifed to death and a police appeal for witnesses draws only silence, Harri decides to start an investigation of his own. In doing so, he unwittingly endangers the fragile web his mother has spun around her family to keep them safe.
Stephen Kelman
Stephen Kelman's debut novel Pigeon English was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2011, the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Guardian First Book Award
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