Hannah Lowe and Monique Roffey made Royal Society of Literature Fellows

Credit: Marcus Bastel

We are delighted that both Hannah Lowe and Monique Roffey have been elected as fellows for the Royal Society of Literature. This honour comes after an extraordinary year for both writers, with Hannah winning the Costa Book of the Year Award in February for her poetry collection THE KIDS, and Monique’s novel THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH (also a Costa Book of the Year Award winner, winning in 2020) going from strength to strength, selling more than 100,000 UK copies and most recently being published by Knopf in the USA and as part of the Vintage Earth series in the UK. The novel has also been optioned for film by Dorothy Street Pictures.

Hannah and Monique became fellows in July, along with 148 other writers and supporters of literature elected between 2020 and 2022. They signed their names in the historic roll book at an event held at Battersea Arts Centre. Monique used author Jean Rhys’ pen to sign, whilst Hannah used Andrea Levy’s as ‘her writing made me want to write’.

The Royal Society of Literature is the UK’s largest charity for the advancement of literature, and to be nominated as a fellow, a writer must have published or produced two works of outstanding literary merit, and nominations must be made by two fellows or honorary fellows. Other writers made fellows this year include Michaela Coel, Russell T. Davies, Sulaiman Addonia and Lemn Sissay.

Credit: Lealle

Daljit Nagra, chair of the Royal Society of Literature, said: ‘We at the RSL are a community of readers and writers coming together for the advancement of literature, bringing our multiple experiences and perspectives to bear on some of the biggest questions of our times. Fellowship isn’t just an honour bestowed to a writer by their peers; being a fellow gives you the opportunity to show what literature can do to change all our lives. 

‘Our fellows inform the work we do, and our summer party is a joyous celebration of the writers who enrich our nations with the cultural wealth of their generous literature. I am delighted to be chair of an organisation that shows the extraordinary and diverse excellence of writing in the UK, and makes it possible for us to create a society we want to live in.’

Newly elected president of the Royal Society of Literature, Bernardine Evaristo, added: ‘Storytelling is at the heart of who we are as humans – it is how we understand, contextualise, mirror, examine, challenge, entertain and imagine life from multiple experiences and perspectives. We all deserve to be active and equal participants in the production and consumption of literature that is as wide-ranging as ourselves.’

About Hannah Lowe

Hannah Lowe was born in Ilford to an English mother and Jamaican-Chinese father. Her 2021 poetry collection, THE KIDS, won the Costa Book of the Year Award 2021. THE KIDS also won the Costa Poetry Award 2021, was shortlisted for the 2021 T.S. Eliot Prize, was a Poetry Book Society Choice for Autumn 2021 and an Irish Times and Guardian poetry book of the year.

Her first book-length collection, CHICK, won the 2015 Michael Murphy Memorial Prize and was selected for the Poetry Book Society’s Next Generation Poets 2014 promotion. Her second full-length collection, CHAN, was published by Bloodaxe in 2016, followed by a pamphlet, THE NEIGHBOURHOOD (Out-Spoken Press) in 2019. Her prose memoir, LONG TIME NO SEE, exploring her relationship with her half-Chinese, half-Jamaican immigrant father, was published by Periscope in 2014.

Visit Hannah’s website and follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

About Monique Roffey
Monique Roffey is an award-winning novelist who divides her time between Trinidad and London. HOUSE OF ASHES (Scribner UK) was shortlisted for the Costa and the BOCAS Prize. ARCHIPELAGO, winner of the OCM BOCAS prize for Caribbean Literature, was published by Scribner in the UK, Viking in the US, and translated into five languages. Her second novel THE WHITE WOMAN ON THE GREEN BICYCLE was shortlisted for the Orange Prize and the Encore Prize, among other accolades, and film/TV rights have been optioned. THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH won the Costa Prize as well as receiving many other prize nominations and international rights deals.

Visit Monique’s website and follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Praise for Hannah Lowe
‘Here is a poet with a commanding style; her voice is entirely her own, both rich and laconic.’ – Penelope Shuttle

‘Lowe’s poetry is vibrant and sensual.’ – Chloe Stopa-Hunt, Poetry Review

‘A joy to read.’ – Liz Berry

‘Always, we are in the hands of Lowe's singular, effortless voice, and reminded that all good education should be an education in class, in the legacies and histories of empire and in the self.’ – Andrew McMillan, Poetry Book Society Bulletin

Praise for Monique Roffey
‘Monique Roffey is a unique talent and most daring and versatile of writers. I never know what to expect and I’m never disappointed.’ – Bernardine Evaristo          

'Monique Roffey is a writer of verve, vibrancy and compassion, and her work is always a joy to read.' – Sarah Hall

‘Monique Roffey has established herself as a fearless writer with her choices of subject and her visceral style.’ – The Guardian

‘One of our most exciting new Caribbean voices.’ – A.L. Kenn

BFLA Best of 2021

At Blake Friedmann we’re proud that so many of our authors and their books were included in ‘Best of 2021’ selections. To celebrate these achievements, we have compiled the following summary of the lists they were featured in, along with the praise that accompanied their selection.

THE HIERARCHIES by Ros Anderson

‘The overall winner, our undisputed Book of the Year, goes to THE HIERARCHIES. This book spread through the store like contraband on the playground, pressed into the hands of one bookseller after another. A dystopian, feminist masterpiece that everyone should read.’ – Waterstones Brighton, ‘Book of the Year’

THE YOUNG TEAM by Graeme Armstrong

One of Foyles’ Paperbacks of the Year

One of Waterstones’ Paperbacks of the Year

LOVE IN COLOUR by Bolu Babalola

One of Foyles’ Paperbacks of the Year

One of Waterstones’ Paperbacks of the Year

‘This multifaceted, multitalented Nigerian-British writer – humorist, television creator and now bestselling author – searched the globe to find a radically diverse group of stories about love, from magical folk tales of West Africa to iconic Greek myths and ancient legends from the Middle East. Then, with an evocative and vivid style, she brought new life to old tales and wrote three original stories of her own. The result is a remarkable modern collection of 13 short stories about love.’ – Carole V. Bell, NPR, ‘Best Romance Books 2021’

CASE STUDY by Graeme Macrae Burnet

One of Nicola Sturgeon’s Favourite Books of 2021

‘Beautifully balanced between harrowing and humorous, CASE STUDY follows a woman who seeks out a captivating psychotherapist whom she believes to be responsible for her sister’s suicide.’ – Waterstones, ‘The Best Books of 2021’

‘Graeme Macrae Burnet’s CASE STUDY is a novel about a 1960s psychologist where the blurring between fact and fiction constantly wrong-foots its readers while still keeping us lavishly entertained.’ – James Walton, The Spectator, ‘Books of the Year’

‘Graeme Macrae Burnet is a master of the false but apparently authentic document… This is a novel, which like Macrae burnet’s previous ones, holds the attention, develops an insidious narrative interest, and poses questions about the nature of the self and the authenticity of identity. There is comedy here too. Indeed, depending on the angle of the view, Braithwaite is a comic character, if also a disturbing one. Certainly in his depiction of him, Macrae Burnet catches the self-satisfied idiocy of one strand of 1960s culture. Indeed, he is done so well and seems so authentic in his inauthenticity that you might be surprised to find no mention of him in the index of John Clay’s admirable biography of Ronnie Laing. For the most part, though Macrae Burnet finds different voices for the writer of the notebooks and the unnamed author of the biographical Braithwaite chapters, his style is plain, lucid, very readable and rich in irony. There are fine comic passages… But it is the appalling and yet ultimately rather pathetic Braithwaite who gives the book its momentum, and is through him that the tone and temper of the times are captured. As in his other novels, Macrae Burnet writes with an admirable lucidity, at the same time being able to probe and shed light on the dark places of the mind. Writing in a prose that is spare, deadpan and yet alive, he poses questions about the nature and perception of what we choose to call reality. He is an uncommonly interesting and satisfying novelist.’ – The Scotsman, ‘Scottish Books 2021’

THE BERESFORD by Will Carver

One of LoveReading’s Books of the Year 2021

‘In THE BERESFORD by Will Carver a maze-like boarding-house becomes a scene of carnage as the tenants are dispatched in grisly fashion one by one. What is going on and who can bring an end to the bloodshed? Carver writes in the tradition of the Theatre of the Absurd, but with added grue. Shocking, compulsive and persuasive. It’s one hell of a ride for those of a mind to jump aboard.’ – Ian Rankin, The New Statesman, ‘Books of the Year’

‘The Theatre of the Absurd gets dunked in gore as the residents of a creepy boarding house take part in a never-ending killing spree’ – Ian Rankin, ’Ian’s End of Year Round-up: 2021’

‘The strangest and creepiest novel I read all year. A boarding house becomes a scene of carnage as residents start bumping each other off. What compels them and how can the chain be severed? This is the theatre of the absurd with added grue, and while Carver’s unique and twisted talent won’t be to all tastes I found this persuasive and compulsive.’ – Ian Rankin, Daily Express, ‘Best Books of 2021’

THE LAST THING TO BURN by Will Dean

One of Deadly Pleasures Staff Best of 2021

Winner of the 2021 Rick O’Shea Book Club International Book of the Year Category

A ‘Hot Press Books of 2021’ honourable mention

‘For pleasure reading, I want warmth and pace and narrative and a steady hand, not sentences that have their eyes on prizes. Will Dean, a man with impossibly luxurious hair who lives in a Swedish forest, is known for his Tuva Moodyson crime fiction series. Tuva, a deaf journalist, is a great character but her adventures can get repetitive. There is nothing repetitive about THE LAST THING TO BURN, an astonishing standalone from Dean, in which a young Vietnamese woman lives an appallingly coerced life with a brute called Lenn. Dean gets the voices chillingly right, the tension rises as inevitably as the claustrophobic pressure draws in, and “Jane” is a woman who you want to triumph at whatever cost. This novel will make your skin crawl with fury at the insidious violence of men.’ – Rose George, The New Statesman, ‘Books of the Year’

‘The crime novel that made my heart race fastest was THE LAST THING TO BURN by Will Dean, a timely and unforgettable locked-door mystery.’ – Anne Cater, Daily Express, ‘Books of the Year’

‘THE LAST THING TO BURN – Will Dean’s first stand-alone novel – is an extremely tense read. It centres on a Vietnamese woman held against her will in a remote farmhouse in the East Midlands. She endures her captivity, day-in-day-out, until two things happen that force her to fight back. This is absolutely a story of survival in its most basic form, but more than that it’s about the immense power of the human spirit – how it can be bashed and broken and still persevere. Dean doesn’t just build suspense – he cloaks his story in it, creating a crushing, claustrophobic atmosphere that feels as if it will never end. But the story does contain unexpected and heartening moments of light that remind readers of the power of humanity and compassion. These are the things that linger when the book comes to a close – and still linger all these months later too.’ – Natalie Xenos, Culturefly, ‘The Best Books of 2021’

‘This is the harrowing story of a young Vietnamese woman trafficked into the UK and kept for years as a slave by a psychopathic farmer in the middle of absolutely nowhere. She thinks she's protecting her sister by remaining compliant but when she discovers that she’s been lied to, she attempts to escape with a baby and a broken foot. It’s short, brilliant and gut-achingly tense.’ – Sunday Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell, Amazon Book Review, ‘Lisa Jewell’s Favourite Reads of 2021’

‘THE LAST THING TO BURN works because Will Dean takes a very risky chance with the narrative – the reader spends the entire novel in Jane’s mind, seeing everything from her perspective. Many writers explore points-of-view tactics from a different gender and while making that feel authentic is often challenging, skilled authors make this look easy. In THE LAST THING TO BURN, however, Will Dean goes one step further, embodying the soul and mind of Jane in a way that is not often witnessed – even in cases where authors are writing POVs that match their gender. Not only does Dean do this himself, but he brings the reader along with him to such a level that Jane/Reader almost merge and it becomes like our very safety is at risk.’ – Kristopher Zgorski, BOLO Books, ‘Top Reads of 2021’

THE ENGLISHMAN by David Gilman

One of LoveReading’s Books of the Year 2021

Peter James

One of Bookscan’s Top Ten Fiction Authors for 2021 (number 9, with LEFT YOU DEAD as top-selling title)

SWIMMING IN THE DARK by Tomasz Jedrowski

One of Foyles’ Paperbacks of the Year

ARE WE HAVING FUN YET? by Lucy Mangan

One of LoveReading’s Books of the Year 2021

‘An uncannily accurate portrayal of the whirlwind of modern family life, Mangan's side-splitting novel introduces Liz and her weird and wonderful brood as she attempts to make it through the year without losing it completely.’ – Waterstones, ‘The Best Books of 2021’

WAYFARERS’ HYMNS by Zakes Mda

‘In Mda’s 31st book, a boy’s desire to become a great famo musician leads him all the way from the Lesotho mountain region to Johannesburg where he comes up against a sordid underworld of crime and gangs.’ – Brittle Paper, ’50 Notable African Books of 2021’

THE DARK FLOOD by Deon Meyer

‘THE DARK FLOOD, the new Benny Griessel thriller from Deon Meyer – need we say more?’ – Daily Maverick, ‘Essential Books of 2021’

WHEN THEY FIND HER by Lia Middleton

One of Apple Books’ Bestselling Audiobooks of 2021

‘I would also like to shout-out my favourite domestic thriller of the year, WHEN THEY FIND HER by Lia Middleton. Totally unputdownable, it’s the sign of a brilliant author when they can build such empathy with a character making a terrible decision within the first few pages and yet keep the reader glued right until the very end as the rest of the twisting plot unfolds.’ – Amy McCulloch, Dead Good Books, ‘Best Crime Novels of 2021’

THREE WEDDINGS AND A PROPOSAL by Sheila O’Flanagan

‘Putting a spin on wedding stories, each wedding of a glorious summer brings a new surprise for Delphie, who has the chance to reshape her future.’ – Denise O’Donoghue, Irish Examiner, ‘Best of the Year Lists’ 

THE APRIL DEAD by Alan Parks

One of Deadly Pleasures Staff Best of 2021

‘Alan Parks, like the best writers, makes you keenly aware of all the pain out there and then (almost) alleviates it.’ – Mark Sanderson, The Times, ’16 Best Crime Books 2021’

SHIVER by Allie Reynolds

One of Deadly Pleasures Staff Best of 2021

One of Foyles’ Paperbacks of the Year   

‘Buckle up – this chilling new thriller from professional snowboarder-turned-author Allie Reynolds will have you feeling like you’re hurtling down a black run from page one… for page-turning power, this mystery had us gripped.’ – Woman and Home, ‘2021 Book Awards’

‘I’ve never been snowboarding in my life and have never been tempted to try it. But I love books that give insights into passions I don’t share, and give a feel for how and why they’re so alluring. This is about a group of competitive snowboarders and is a combination of flashbacks—to when they were all competing, ten years ago—and the present, when they attend a reunion and get stuck up a mountain. The book gives a real feel for what it’s like to be in a resort in the French Alps: the drinking, the snow, the lifts, the camaraderie. I was not surprised, after finishing the book, to find out the author, Allie Reynolds, was once a top UK freestyle snowboarder who spent five winters in the mountains of France, Switzerland, Austria and Canada. All in all, it’s a classic Agatha Christie-style locked-room mystery combined with very vivid accounts of being in the mountains and risking life and limb going down the halfpipe.’ – Sophie Roell, Five Books, ‘The Best Crime Fiction of 2021’

THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH By Monique Roffey

 One of Bookshop.org’s ‘The Bookshop 100: Indie Champions 2021’

One of Foyles’ Paperbacks of the Year

One of Waterstones’ Paperbacks of the Year