“nicola barker”

Shortlisted for THE Man BOOKER PRIZE 2007 'An extraordinary writer; we're lucky to be alive at the same time as her.'Ali Smith Darkmans is a very modern book, set in Ashford [a ridiculously modern town], about two very old-fashioned subjects: love and jealousy. It's also a book about invasion, obs... More

On September 5, 2003, illusionist David Blaine entered a small Perspex box adjacent to London's Thames River and began starving himself. Forty-four days later, on October 19, he left the box, fifty pounds lighter. That much, at least, is clear. And the rest? The crowds? The chaos? The hype? The rage... More

Audacious, original, clever, poignant -- these are just a few words that describe the writing of Nicola Barker, a talented, award-winning author whose work brings to mind Martin Amis, Julian Barnes, and Maragaret Atwood. Now nineteen of her finest short stories have been complied into one brilliant,... More

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, "Darkmans" is an exhilarating, extraordinary examination of the ways in which history can play jokes on the unsuspecting. The third of Barkers narratives of the Thames Gateway, this work is an epic novel of startling originality.Shortlisted for the Man Booker Pr... More

A raucous, exuberant novel about the outrageous circus surrounding David Blaine’s 2003 starvation stunt at Tower Bridge, from Nicola Barker, a Granta Best of British Novelist. On 5th September 2003, New York illusionist David Blaine entered a small Perspex box beside the River Thames and began s... More

Spurting with kinetic energy, nasty wit, and kindness to animals, Wesley ought to be a star. Or so it seems to the "Behindlings" -- followers who nip at his heels, turn up everywhere he goes, and lie in wait for him around every corner. They skulk through the dreary streets of their tiny English tow... More

Winner of the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2000, this brilliant and wildly imaginative novel centers on a motley crew of oddballs and misfits who come together on the Isle of Sheppey, each rife with secrets and madness simmering beneath the surface of normality.As winner of the highly p... More