2016

Sarah Hesketh is a writer and editor from Pendle, in East Lancashire. She is the author of the poetry collections Napoleon’s Travelling Bookshelf (Penned in the Margins, 2009) and The Hard Word Box (Penned in the Margins, 2014), and the editor of The Emma Press Anthology of Age (2015). She currently lives in London and works as Managing Editor for Modern Poetry in Translation.

‘This is a book that vividly, wonderfully, stirringly defies categorisation. It is a story, a poem, an oral history, a series of arguments about an epoch, and who and what we are becoming. Sarah Hesketh has done something truly original – brave and also hugely engaging.’ – Fergal Keane‘Sarah Hesketh’s work is an epic for our times, composed of luminous fragments from the lives of the ordinary and less ordinary.’ – Sasha Dugdale‘Encompassing the election of Trump, the Brexit vote, and the deaths of Jo Cox, David Bowie and Carrie Fisher – as well as the death of Hesketh’s own father - 2016 subtly builds into a moving study of grief, and the solace to be found in other people.’ – Clare Pollard‘This book gives the rare opportunity to blink through the eyes of those with whom we may not ordinarily agree. I defy any reader to walk away without a renewed perspective on the events of 2016.’ – Tracy King‘The mosaic technique lays bare the raw material – the same units of speech – from which all opinions are formed. And as with the best pieces of literature based on transcribed speech an accumulative effect takes hold: it becomes a choral piece.' – Caroline Clark