Showing results by author "Helen Oyeyemi" in All Categories

In the winter of 1953, Boy Novak arrives by chance in a small town in Massachusetts, looking, she believes, for beauty - the opposite of the life she' s left behind in New York. She marries a local widower and becomes stepmother to his winsome daughter, Snow Whitman. A wicked stepmother is a creature Boy never imagined she' d become, but elements of the familiar tale of aesthetic obsession begin to play themselves out when the birth of Boy' s daughter, Bird, who is dark-skinned, exposes the Whitmans as light-skinned African Americans passing for white.

"Exhilarating...A wildly imagined, head-spinning, deeply intelligent novel." - The New York Times Book Review "[W]ildly inventive…[Helen Oyeyemi's] prose is not without its playful bite." –Vogue The prize-winning, bestselling author of Boy Snow Bird, What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, and...

In "Books and Roses", one special key opens a library, a garden, and clues to at least two lovers' fates. In "Is Your Blood as Red as This?", an unlikely key opens the heart of a student at a puppeteering school. "'Sorry' Doesn't Sweeten Her Tea" involves a "house of locks", where doors can be closed only with a key - with surprising unobservable developments. And in "If a Book Is Locked There's Probably a Good Reason for That Don't You Think", a key keeps a mystical diary locked (for good reason).

'Wonderful . . . all killer, no filler' Red Magazine 'Dazzling stories, as inventive as they are inspiring' Daily Mirror 'Where power and feminist rage meet' Stylist ______________________________ A fun and fearless anthology of feminist tales, by fifteen bestselling, award-winning writers...

Jessamy "Jess" Harrison is an eight year old caught between two worlds. Born to a British father and a Nigerian mother, she has forever felt like she doesn't belong. Jessamy is precocious but has difficulty getting along in school; she throws tantrums seemingly at random and makes life a challenge for her parents. Believing that a change might be the perfect antidote to Jess's troubles, her parents whisk her off to Nigeria to visit relatives. But Jessamy's plight is only beginning....

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORKER "Equal parts mischievous, moony, and tart...Her prose offers, in a single page, poetic candor, sly wit, dad jokes, and contemporary therapyspeak." ― The New Yorker “Her weirdest and funniest yet — in the best way possible.” ― Los Angeles...

ONE OF BIBLIOLIFESTYLE’S “BEST LITERARY FICTION OF 2024” "A shape-shifting novel about the power of stories…Helen Oyeyemi is a literary pied piper — her voice is the kind that readers gamely follow into the most bewildering and unnerving of situations." – The New York Times “A...

What happens when Kafka’s idiosyncratic imagination meets some of the greatest literary minds writing in English across the globe today? Find out in this anthology of brand-new Kafka-inspired short stories by prizewinning, bestselling writers. Franz Kafka is widely regarded as one of the...

Winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Fiction One of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists From the prizewinning young writer of What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, Gingerbread, and Peaces comes a brilliant and inventive story of love, lies, and inspiration. Fairy-tale romances end with a...

One for the Trouble: Book Slam, Volume One is the first release from the UK’s premier literary event. Eighteen Book Slam alumni, from household names like Irvine Welsh and William Boyd to newcomers like Kate Tempest and Sophie Woolley, were approached to take a song title for inspiration for a new short story or poem. Some took this literally (Jon McGregor’s moving reimagining of A House’s 'Endless Art', for example); others suggestively....

“Enchanting . . . the most surprising, confounding, and oddly insightful couple’s trip in recent literary history.” —Entertainment Weekly The prize-winning, bestselling author of Gingerbread; Boy, Snow, Bird; and What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours returns with a vivid and inventive new novel...

The new novel from a literary star - brilliant and deeply relatable. 'There are few writers who can match Oyeyemi's creative glee.' GUARDIAN 'One of the best writers alive today.' STYLIST Kinga is a woman who is just trying to make it through the week. There's a Kinga for every day: on Mondays...

The 5 shortlisted titles for the BBC National Short Story Award 2010 administered in partnership with Booktrust, containing:Tea at the Midland by David ConstantineDavid Constantine 2010 Haywards Heath by Aminatta FornaAminatta Forna 2010Butcher’s Perfume by Sarah HallSarah Hall 2010If It Keeps on Raining by Jon McGregorJon McGregor 2010My Daughter the Racist by Helen OyeyemiHelen Oyeyemi 2010

Perdita Lee may appear your average British schoolgirl; Harriet Lee may seem just a working mother trying to penetrate the school social hierarchy; but there are signs that they might not be as normal as they think they are. For one thing, they share a gold-painted, seventh-floor flat with some surprisingly verbal vegetation. And then there’s the gingerbread they make. Londoners may find themselves able to take or leave it, but it’s very popular in Druhástrana, the far-away (and, according to Wikipedia, nonexistent) land of Harriet Lee’s early youth.

Boy: Novak turns twenty and takes a bus from New York to the end of the line, Flax Hill, Massachusetts. Here she finds Snow a mild-mannered and deeply cherished girl. Snow displays a certain inscrutability, that's simply harmless until Boy gives birth to Snow's sister, Bird. When Bird is born...

Oyeyemi treats you to a kaleidoscopic weekend in Prague, as dazzling as it is effortlessly unique. Get lost in the story like you would an unfamiliar city and let it reward you with moments of philosophical clarity, wheelbarrow rides, raw emotion and raw onions. This novel is a holiday, an adventure, a marvel and a guide. It is a story about the lies behind the lies we tell and a city as a living thing, sustained by the lives of its inhabitants. Suffused with warmth and joy, Parasol Against the Axe is a love letter to Prague, and to the art of storytelling.

A collection of brand-new short stories written by prize-winning, bestselling writers and inspired by Kafka - published to commemorate the centenary of his death *Chosen as a 2024 highlight in the Guardian, the Financial Times, the Daily Mail, New Statesman, Esquire and the New European* Franz...

When Otto and Xavier Shin declare their love, an aunt gifts them a trip on a sleeper train to mark their new commitment - and to get them out of her house. Setting off with their pet mongoose, Otto and Xavier arrive at their sleepy local train station, but quickly deduce that The Lucky Day is no ordinary locomotive. Their trip on this former tea-smuggling train has been curated beyond their wildest imaginations, complete with mysterious and welcoming touches, like ingredients for their favourite breakfast.

Los amores en los cuentos de hadas siempre acaban en boda; al menos en los cuentos que no quieren complicarse demasiado. Éste no es el caso de la historia del señor Fox, un afamado escritor que no puede evitar matar a todas las protagonistas de sus novelas, incluida su esposa Daphne. Pero un...

A Ghostly Little Book brings you five brand new spooky stories from five of the best writers on the planet From Edgar Allen Poe to Charles Dickens, from Shirley Jackson to Toni Morrison, the greatest writers have, in some way or other, always been drawn to that ancient, mysterious thing: the...