Maggie Gee Knihy

Vanessa, a writer, flies to Uganda for a conference. She means to visit her ex-cleaner Mary, now the Housekeeper of the Sheraton Hotel. Mary has her own agenda: her son is missing. Vanessa sets off alone to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest to see the gorillas. But she quarrels with her driver and a war closes in from the Congo. Can anyone save0 her?

Nominated for the 2015 Folio Prize, this sparkling, critically acclaimed novel is now available in paperback. This is a love letter to Virginia Woolf by one of Britain's best loved authors, previously shortlisted for the Orange Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

"A wise and beautiful book about what it feels like to be alive—I really loved it."—Zadie Smith"Maggie Gee's account of her life as a writer cuts to the bone as she relives triumphs, rejections, despair and renewal. It's a wonderful book, for its boldness and vigour, and for its piercing honesty."—Claire TomalinHow do you become a writer, and why?Maggie Gee's journey starts in a small family in post-war Britain, a long way from the literary world. At seventeen, Maggie goes, a lamb to the slaughter, to university. From the 1960s onwards she lives the defining events of her generation: the coming of the Pill and sexual freedom, tremors in the British layer-cake of class and race. In the 1980s, Maggie finally gets published, falls in love, marries, and has a daughter—but for the next three decades and beyond, she survives, and sometimes thrives, by writing. This frank, bold memoir dares to explore the big questions: success and failure, sex, death, and parenthood—our animal life.Maggie Gee was chosen as one of Granta's original Best Young British Novelists. She has published many novels to great acclaim, including The White Family, shortlisted for the Orange and IMPAC prizes; My Cleaner; The Flood, longlisted for the Orange Prize; and The Ice People. She was the first female chair of the Royal Society of Literature from 2004–2008 and is now one of its vice presidents.

A new novel from critically acclaimed British author Maggie Gee. A topical and deeply moving meditation on belonging, set in the near future, against a backdrop of migration pressures, climate change and an increasing isolationist mood in the UK.

Christopher and Alexandra's passion for one another raises eyebrows and invites envy. This beautiful, blinkered couple do the unthinkable and run away from home, abandoning their two teenage children. This is a story of obsessive love and a testimony to the bonds that tie us to our past, regardless of distance or time travelled.

Twentieth anniversary edition of this timeless, groundbreaking novel about race and racism in modern Britain, with new introduction by Booker-prize- winning author and cultural commentator Bernadine Evaristo; and a note from the author reflecting on changes in the conversation regarding race and literature over the past two decades.

Literary black comedy with lashings of thriller. Adult children take revenge on their brutal father, but the victim crawls back ... A wise and beautiful book about what it feels like to be alive Zadie SmithFast-moving, energetic, constantly surprising Hilary Mantel Supremely artful Lionel Shriver

Ugandan Mary Tendo worked for many years in the white middle-class Henman household in London, cleaning for Vanessa and looking after her only child, Justin. More than ten years after Mary has left, Justin is too depressed to get out of bed. To his mother's surprise, he asks for Mary. This work confronts racism and class conflict with humour.

Presents stories of everyday life set against an intricately woven backdrop encompassing larger issues of poverty, race relations, and social prejudices. This title is about love that tell us something about life, and how people negotiate a path for themselves. The actors of the stories quietly and unobtrusively assume their place in the world.