Alphabet by Kathy Page is now available in German. Translator Beatrice Fassbender, publisher Verlag Klaus Wagenbach. https://www.wagenbach.de/buecher.html

What will she be like? he thinks. I don’t know. Who will I become? Ditto. A leap in the dark… “…a wonderful book, peculiar, intense, revealing, challenging, exhausting and above all riveting…I kept saying to myself, how could she know this?” Guardian (UK) columnist Erwin James (author of A Life Inside) Simon Austen is serving … Continue reading Alphabet →

  “…It’s not often that I read a book set in prison. It’s even less often that I read a book set in early 1980s Britain. Even more rare is that I’d enjoy the combination of the two, but Alphabet is a stunningly well written and deeply human book. The nuance of relationships and character development … Continue reading Isla Mcketta reviews Alphabet →

  Leland Cheuk reviews both Alphabet and Paradise & Elsehwere in The Rumpus. ALPHABET AND PARADISE AND ELSEWHERE BY KATHY PAGE REVIEWED BY LELAND CHEUK December 8th, 2014 Studies have shown that reading literary fiction increases a reader’s ability to empathize. In her first books to be published in the U.S., Giller Prize-nominated British author Kathy Page puts that … Continue reading Double Review: Alphabet and Paradise & Elsewhere in The Rumpus →

Alphabet, first published in the Uk in 2004 and in Canada in 2005, when it was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award, is now available in the US for the first time, and receiving great reviews, including stars from Kirkus, Publisher’s Weekly and the Library Journal.  It was a pick for the Indie Next … Continue reading Same ABC, two designs: Kathy Page’s novel Alphabet in the USA and Canada →

Biblioasis are re-issuing Alphabet as part of their new reprint series. It will be available in print and e-book  and is all set to reach to a new  readership south of the border  this fall.  We wrestled briefly with how to present a book that is steeped in British slang, idiom, culture and history in … Continue reading Interview in Publishing Perspectives →

You can read/see Tobias Carroll’s interview with Kathy Page for  Volume 1 bookstore in Brooklyn  here, on their excellent site: http://www.vol1brooklyn.com/2014/11/18/kathy-page-on-her-new-collection-and-tourists-right-at-the-burnt-out-end-of-human-history/     “The stories in Kathy Page’s new collection Paradise & Elsewhere revel in discontinuity. Whether exploring the ruins of a fallen civilization, finding unexpected tension in the interactions between tourists and the residents of … Continue reading Paradise, Elsewhere, Alphabet: interview for Volume 1 →

Kirkus feature on Kathy Page and the writing of Alphabet https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/kathy-page/

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kathy-page/alphabet-page/ From Kirkus Publisher:Biblioasis Pages: 304 Price ( Paperback ): $16.95 Publication Date: October 14, 2014ISBN ( Paperback ): 978-1-927428-93-1 Category: Fiction ALPHABET by Kathy Page A moving novel about knowledge, self-awareness and the power of words, set in the purgatory of prison. This young man’s life demands our attention and refuses to let go. Simon Austen is serving life imprisonment … Continue reading Gritty, illuminating, fascinating, moving, powerful: double thumbs from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly for Alphabet →

            Bibllioasis designer Kate Hargreaves has come up with this stunning and brave image for the US edition of Alphabet, which comes out this fall. How apt it is: the sheer brute persistence, the obsessiveness, the creativity. Here’s the full spread. Click for a closer view.

”A complex book, and splendidly written, Alphabet is an intensely compelling reading experience that speaks to the power of words and the significance of language in all its dangerous subtleties.” Marc Horton, The Edmonton Journal “Kathy Page knows that the things we can’t understand are often the things that terrify us the most. In her … Continue reading Comments and Reviews →

You could say that I have spent  the  three years it took to complete  Alphabet  co-habiting with a dangerous  man. Someone brutal and manipulative,  but also damaged,  intelligent, and, occasionally, charming. My family were  forced to be close to this man  as well. It was something of a roller coaster ride  and from time to … Continue reading On Writing Alphabet →

Alphabet Kathy Page Weidenfeld & Nicolson LONDON 1. There’s no chair, even. The room is blue-grey, fluorescent-lit, like the rest. ‘Property ?’ the man at the counter asks. Well, they’ve already taken his proper clothes: Simon’s standing there in a striped shirt, a pair of thin jeans that won’t stay up. ‘Anything that might get … Continue reading Excerpt from Alphabet →

Love Inside Extracted from an article about Kathy Page’s experience as Writer in Residence in Nottingham Prison, published in The Big Issue, 19 July 2004 A neatly dressed, balding man with some alarming facial scars leaned back in his chair and treated me to a list of  already familiar complaints about the state of the … Continue reading Love Inside →

From one surreal moment to the next… The trip was part family, part business. Melatonin did not work and for several days we had walked in an exhausted, dreamlike state through the shade of galleries and museums taking in old favourites and seeing strange new things, such as the National Portrait Gallery’s video loop of … Continue reading Sales Figures →

Maria hasn’t arrived.  I refuse to panic myself by checking my watch but I know it’s after 7pm, and I’m supposed to read at Pages at 7:30.  I peer out at the glitter of passing traffic; nothing even slows down, and finally I cave in and call her. “Hi, Maria, how are you?” “Kathy, I … Continue reading The Reading →

The Book Arrives (Alphabet) Strawberries. Sunbathing snakes.  The first garden vegetables, the first swim in the lake, the last days of school, the long, golden evenings…  I write in the garden, lying in a hammock that’s shaded by an old cherry tree;  in a branch above me a robin pecks at the fruit, splattering my legs with  … Continue reading Notes & Queries →

Snakes & Ladders. The phone rings at 7.40 am: I’m easing the kids into raingear and out of the door along with their lunches, books, sports equipment and a recently discovered sheep skull for Show & Tell. Yes? I say, thinking it’s either a UK emergency, another cancelled soccer match or the dentist again – … Continue reading Snakes and Ladders →