Thread by @timespolitics

Bright young things

Meet seven of the most exciting writers appearing at the @CheltLitFest thetimes.co.uk/article/chelte…

Paul Mendez

Brought up as a Jehovah’s Witness, Mendez was “disfellowshipped” from the church as a teenager, became estranged from his family, moved to London and came out as gay

Mendez’s autobiographical novel, Rainbow Milk, was dubbed“a unique new voice in the British novel.”

.@Gabriel_Krauze

Krauze attempted to write a novel about the First World War aged 13 — the same year he first witnessed a stabbing and threatened someone with a knife.

He spent his twenties drug dealing and had two stints in prison. He is now a Booker Prize long listed author.

.@OteghaUwagba

After ditching a successful career in advertising in 2016, she self-published a career manual, Little Black Book, which immediately sold out.

It was later reissued and became a Sunday Times bestseller.

.@annafbailey

After enduring bullying and struggling with her sexuality while at Bath Spa University, Bailey moved to Colorado, where she worked in Starbucks.

Returning to the UK in 2018, she wrote Tall Bones. She has been championed by the crime fiction queen @valmcdermid

Megan Nolan

“Please believe the hype,” The Sunday Times implored when Nolan’s extraordinary debut novel, Acts of Desperation, came out this year.

Her book, which details a young woman’s relationship with her abusive boyfriend, has been optioned for a screen adaptation.

.@CalebANelson

Open Water, an autobiographical debut novel about first love, growing up black in London and black creativity, triggered a nine-way publishing auction and immediately made Azumah Nelson one to watch.

.@RaymondAntrobus

His deafness, his Anglo-Jamaican heritage, his father’s dementia and death: these are some of the subjects that Hackneyborn Antrobus has explored in his poetry.

In 2019 he won the Sunday Times/University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year award.

Read the full list: thetimes.co.uk/article/chelte…