Look We Have Coming to Dover!
A debut collection that portrays immigrant communities in Britain with both humor and urgency, turning a hybrid English into the book’s own driving force.
Work Information
It re-sees Britain after migration from the inside.
Daljit Nagra’s 2007 debut, published by Faber and Faber, moves between playful verbal invention and social observation to depict immigrant Britain in a distinctly hybrid voice.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Faber & Faber
- Published
- 2007-02-01
- Pages
- 64 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 13.1 x 0.6 x 19.8 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780571231225
- ISBN-10
- 0571231225
- Price
- 2372 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction
Taking in its sights Matthew Arnold's 'land of dreams', the collection explores the idealism and reality of a multicultural Britain with wit, intelligence and no small sense of mischief. Nagra, whose own parents came to England from the Punjab in the 1950s, conjures a jazzed hybrid language to tell stories of aspiration, assimilation, alienation and love, from a stowaway's first footprint on Dover beach to the disenchantment of subsequent generations. By turns realist and romantic, these charged and challenging poems never shy from confrontation, but remain, always, touched by a humorous zeal and an appetite for living.
Daljit Nagra was born into a working-class, Sikh family in London. He is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University of London, Vice President of the Royal Society of Literature, Lead Advisor to Poetry By Heart and presents the weekly Poetry Extra on Radio 4 Extra. Nagra's collections have won the Forward Prize for Best Individual Poem and Best First Book, the South Bank Show Decibel Award and the Cholmondeley Award. He lives with his family in Harrow.
Reviews
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Perfect
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British poetry isn't what it used to be. This had a great advance billing but it left me disappointed and wanting my money back. It wants to be fun but it just comes off as foolish, and I was left asking why I paid for someone else's indulgence.
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This is simply one of the best contemporary anthologies I've read and one of the very few I return to again and again with relish. Borrowing Neil Bloodaxe Astley's words re poetry, this is poetry which exudes 'the fullest and most subtle flavour'. Its rhythmical, phonetic delicacies offer a colourful insight into British-Asian culture and are an inspiration to read. Thanks Daljit! (I'm surprised there aren't more reviews for such a brilliant collection!)
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Good reading material
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Fast delivery. A wonderful collection of poems from a brilliant poet.
Related Literary Awards
- Forward Prizes for Poetry Edition 13 (2004) ・Excellence Award
- Forward Prizes for Poetry Edition 16 (2007) ・Excellence Award