Adelle Stripe – författare

Shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and Portico Prize for Literature''As funny and sad as anything by Dunbar herself'' Observer, Books of the Year

''One of the great debut novels of the century, and one of my very favourite books ever.'' David Peace

They used to say I had a chip on my shoulder. Whatever that means. I couldn''t ever work that out but I know I always felt that I wasn''t as good as other people. I was angry. Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile tells the story of the tragically short life of playwright Andrea Dunbar. Interweaving fact and fiction, letters and scripts, newspaper stories and memory, Adelle Stripe reveals how a shy teenage girl defied the circumstances into which she was born, and the prejudice she met, to become one of her generation''s greatest dramatists...

Set against the backdrop of the infamous Buttershaw estate in Bradford during the Thatcher era, this is an exhilarating and unforgettable account of an extraordinary woman''s life, her tragedies and her triumphs.

Praise for Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile

''Snaps and prickles and brings a talented, troubled woman to life. [Stripe] gives an important story a real spark: Dunbar''s energy and mischief bubble in the bleakness'' Guardian

''The author''s voice and Dunbar''s mingle to create not just a portrait of an artist - funny, mischievous, reckless and truthful - but also divisions of class, geography and opportunity which continue to shape this country'' Spectator

A Telegraph Best Book of 2025''Ingenious'' - ★★★★★ Telegraph''Candid and compelling'' - Guardian''Wistful, sad and funny'' - Spectator''Working-class life pinned to the page'' - Herald''Already your future has been planned out. There is not much choice about what to become in the small town where you live . . .''A bedroom dreamer with a headful of Warhol, Adelle Stripe''s formative years were ones of daytime drinking and religious fervour, frustrated mothers and reckless daughters, desire, ambition and the pursuit of creativity. Told through a prism of vintage perfumes, and played out in vivid detail with startling clarity and colour, Base Notes chronicles an unbridled Northern England of the late 20th century already fading from view.With a keen eye for the absurd, an ear cocked to eavesdropped conversations and a nose that finds perfume wherever it goes, this tragicomic tale of working-class womanhood is no clichéd story of redemption or escape, but instead a bleakly funny yet unflinching memoir of dead-end jobs, lost weekends, brief encounters and those wild, forgotten characters who slip through the cracks.Infused with acerbic observations and unexpected poignancy, Base Notes sees Adelle Stripe boldly laying her lived experience on the page, creating literature from a life less ordinary.

From the mountains of Algeria to the squats of South London via sectarian Northern Ireland, Ten Thousand Apologies is the sordid and thrilling story of the country''s most notorious cult band, Fat White Family. Loved and loathed in equal measure since their formation in 2011, the relentlessly provocative, stunningly dysfunctional "drug band with a rock problem" have dedicated themselves to constant chaos and total creative freedom at all costs.Like a tragicomic penny dreadful dreamed up by a mutant hybrid of Jean Genet, the Dadaists and Mark E. Smith, the Fat Whites'' story is a frequently jaw-dropping epic of creative insurrection, narcotic excess, mental illness, wanderlust, self-sabotage, fractured masculinity, and the ruthless pursuit of absolute art.Co-written with lucidity and humour by singer Lias Saoudi and acclaimed author Adelle Stripe, Ten Thousand Apologies is that rare thing: a music book that barely features any music, a biography as literary as any novel, and a confessional that does not seek forgiveness. This is the definitive account of Fat White Family''s disgraceful and radiant jihad - a depraved, romantic and furious gesture of refusal to a sanitised era.

This slice of kitchen sink noir tells Dunbar’s story in print for the very first time. Featuring a cast of real and imagined characters, it is the result of four years’ painstaking research that has unearthed the hidden story of one of the North’s most enigmatic figures. It is a tale of the North / South divide and reveals how a shy teenage girl defied the circumstances she was born into to become one of West Yorkshire’s greatest dramatists.

Set in the Thatcher era, it maps the extraordinary rise of a young woman from the Buttershaw estate, who is discovered via a Women’s Aid refuge. She is propelled into the London theatre establishment and an adapted screenplay of two of her early plays brings her wealth, accolades and notoriety, while raising three young children.

Rita, Sue and Bob Too! was a national scandal upon its release, and its tagline ‘Thatcher’s Britain with Her Knickers Down’ ensures it is a box office sensation. Fame brings anxiety however, and Dunbar is unable to cope with the media attention, pressures of family life and writer’s block. She slowly succumbs to the pitfalls of drink and spends her last days in her local pub The Beacon, where she completes her final script based on a gang of unscrupulous debt collectors. In 1990, aged 29, she collapses from a fatal brain haemorrhage.

One of the most important writers of her generation, this remarkably stubborn ‘genius straight from the slums’ recorded the everyday realities of working-class life in the North of England. Dunbar’s unflinching autobiographical plays included themes of domestic violence, underage sex, poverty, racism, alcoholism and the declining status of men. By using frank and expletive-ridden dialogue she created a no-holds-barred account of the underclass composed in the tradition of social realism.