Today in Bookish and Literary History, September 1
1651 Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe
Crusoe runs away to sea and is promptly shipwrecked
Crusoe captured by Turkish pirates and enslaved for two years at Salé, on the Barbary Coast.
1659 Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe
Crusoe leaves Brazil on his disastrous slaving voyage.
1773 "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral" by American slave Phillis Wheatley published in the UK - first known book of poetry published by a Black woman
1913 George Bernard Shaw's play "Androcles and the Lion" premieres in London
The play is Shaw's retelling of the tale of Androcles, a slave who is saved by the requiting mercy of a lion.
1982 Naira Power by Buchi Emecheta is published (Uk-Nigeria)
It is a narrative about corruption in which the main character Ramonu wielded power over justice due to his riches. Everything went wrong when the power went off.
2003 The King of Capri by Jeanette Winterson is published (UK)
When a greedy king wakes up one morning, everything he owns has gone - blown across the bay to neighbouring Naples. When a poor and humble washerwoman wakes up that same morning her back yard is full of things that simply were not there the night before. Soon the king and the washerwoman meet for the first time and from that moment both their lives magically change.
2015 The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood is published
The novel is described as a "wickedly funny and deeply disturbing novel about a near future in which the lawful are locked up and the lawless roam free.”
2016 Nutshell by Ian McEwan is published (UK)
It alludes to William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and re-imagines the plot from the perspective of an eight-month-old unborn foetus in London in 2015.
2020 Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones is published
We thought we'd play a fun prank on her, and now most of us are dead.
- Awarded the 2020 Bram Stoker Award for Best Long Fiction
- Awarded the 2021 Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novella
An electrifying thriller with a mind-bending premise: One million viewers witness a popular TV presenter commit suicide live on air - yet his twin brother is convinced it was murder.
2020 Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is published
In fierce prose and poetic fragments, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s Noopiming braids together humor, piercing detail, and a deep, abiding commitment to Anishinaabe life to tell stories of resistance, love, and joy.
- Shortlisted for the 2020 Dublin Literary Award
The collection consists of nine stories that explore the intersection of sexuality and Christianity.
- Finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction
- Winner of the 2020 The Story Prize
- Winner of the 2020 Los Angeles Times Book Prize
- Winner of the 2020 Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction
- Winner of the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
- Longlisted for the 2021 The L.D. and LaVerne Harrell Clark Fiction Prize
Neil Fischer owns a village. Having inherited his father’s former hometown of Marschwald in East Germany, left to deteriorate since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Neil faces the task of deciphering his demanding father’s last wish and restoring the derelict village to its former glory.
2024 Japa and Other Stories by Iheoma Nwachukwu is published
This book is about young Nigerian immigrants who bilocate, trek through the desert, become temporary Mormons, sneak through Russia, and yearn for new life in strange new territories that force them to confront what it means to search for a connection far from home.
- Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction
The linked stories of Lake Song, set in the fictional town of Kinder Falls in New York’s Finger Lakes region, span decades to plumb the complexities, violence, and compassion of small-town life as the twentieth century hurtles forward.
- Winner of the AWP Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction
Five members of a billionaire’s family. In different locations. All kidnapped at the same moment.
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