Jonathan Barnes
Jonathan Barnes on Five First Novels
This year’s longlist for the Man Booker prize is an unusually intriguing one. Alongside commendations for such established writers as Alan Hollinghurst and Julian Barnes is a surprisingly healthy amount of what publishers might designate as ‘genre fiction’ (D J Taylor’s Derby Day; A D Miller’s Snowdrops) as well as an encouraging number of first novels.
Stephen Kelman’s Pigeon English (Bloomsbury 288pp £12.99) is one such debut. Its hero is Harrison Opoku, an eleven-year-old Ghanaian boy who lives on an inner-city housing estate with his mother and sister. At the beginning of the story Harrison, with the aid of a pair of plastic binoculars
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