Tom Williams
What’s in a Name?
In William Thacker’s second novel, Lingua Franca, the narrator, Miles Platting, awakes from a shipwreck, buried under rubble. He is rescued and transported to a hospital, where everyone communicates in silence, through handwritten notes and sign language. When he asks for the whereabouts of his wife, Kendal, he is handed a pen and told to write down everything he remembers, and so he reveals how he reached this unlikely point.
Miles is the founder of a naming rights agency, Lingua Franca, which enables towns across the UK to be renamed after corporate sponsors. Thus Milton Keynes has become Stella Artois and Southampton is Wagamama. Lingua Franca claims that sponsorship will reduce a town’s debt burden, attract investment and lower taxes.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'It is the ... sketches of the local and the overlooked that lend this book its density and drive, and emphasise Britain’s mostly low-key riches – if only you can be bothered to buy an anorak and seek.'
Jonathan Meades on the beauty of brutalism.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/castles-of-concrete
'Cruickshank’s history reveals an extraordinary eclecticism of architectural styles and buildings, from Dutch Revivalism to Arts and Crafts experimentation, from Georgian terraces to Victorian mansion blocks.'
William Boyd on the architecture of Chelsea.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/where-george-eliot-meets-mick-jagger
'The eight years he has spent in solitary confinement have had a devastating impact on his mental health ... human rights organisations believe his detention is punishment for his critical views.'
@lucyjpop on the Egyptian activist and poet Ahmed Douma.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/ahmed-douma