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Fiction, reportage and poetry on the subject of London's close-knit wealth and poverty, featuring Ali Smith, Arifa Akbar, Ruth Padel and many others.
About the author
Ali Smith was born in Inverness and lives in Cambridge. She is the author of three collections of stories and three novels. Hotel World was shortlisted for both the Booker Prize and the Orange Prize in 2001 and her latest novel, The Accidental, won the 2006 Whitbread Novel Award. Ali reviews regularly for the Guardian, the Scotsman and the TLS.
Nicolette Jones is a writer, journalist, literary critic and broadcaster. Her book The Plimsoll Sensation was a Radio 4 Book of the Week and won two maritime literature prizes. Her other books include The American Art Tapes: Voices of Twentieth-Century Art. She is the long-standing children's books reviewer of the Sunday Times and was a nominee for the Eleanor Farjeon Award for outstanding service to the world of children's books. In 2022, she was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Summary
London today is embattled as rarely before. In a city of enormous wealth, poverty is rampant. The burnt-out hulk of Grenfell Tower stands as an appalling reminder that inequality can be so acute as to be murderous. Here, Claire Armitstead has drawn together fiction, reportage and poetry to capture the schisms defining the contemporary city. With nearly 40% of the capital's population born outside the country, Tales of Two Londons eschews what Armitstead labels a "tyranny of tone," emphasising voices rarely heard. Featuring writers such as Ali Smith, Jon Snow, Arifa Akbar and Ruth Padel alongside stories from previously unpublished immigrants and refugees, this is a compelling collection which captures the fabric of the city: its housing, its food, its pubs, its buses, even its graveyards.
