Jonathan Coe – författare

From the bestselling author of Middle England and Mr Wilder and Me comes a brilliant new state of the nation novel

In the Birmingham suburb of Bournville, a family celebrate VE Day in 1945. With the joy of such an occasion there also come larger national questions about the nature of the horrific war the country has just been through. Following this family through generations as they navigate seventy-five years of drastic social change, from wartime nostalgia and English exceptionalism to the World Cup and coronavirus, domestic secrets and national myths leave characters and a country adrift, bewildered and divided.

Bournville is the story of who we are - at our worst, and best. From bestselling author Jonathan Coe comes a novel of rare humour and humanity, a novel that holds up a mirror to our past and our present.

THE NEW STATE OF THE NATION MYSTERY FROM THE AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR, AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER NOW When Phyl, a young literature graduate, moves back home with her parents, she soon finds herself frustrated by the narrow horizons of English country life. As for her plans of becoming a writer, those are going nowhere. But the chance discovery of a forgotten novelist from the 1980s stirs her into action, as does a visit from her uncle Richard - especially when he tells her that he's working on a political story that might put his life in danger.Richard has been following the careers of a group of students, all present at Cambridge University in the 1980s, now members of a think-tank which has been quietly pushing the British government towards extremism. And now, after years in the political wilderness, they might be in a position to put their ideas into action.As Britain finds itself under the leadership of a new Prime Minister whose tenure will only last for seven weeks, Richard pursues his story to a mysterious conference taking place deep in the Cotswolds. When Phyl hears that one of the delegates has been murdered, she begins to wonder if real life is starting to merge with the novel she's been trying to write. But does the explanation really lie in contemporary politics, or in a literary enigma that is almost forty years old?Darting between decades and genres, THE PROOF OF MY INNOCENCE reimagines the coming-of-age story, the cosy crime caper and the state-of-the-nation novel with Coe's trademark humour and warmth. From one of Britain's finest living novelists, this is a witty, razor-sharp novel which explores how the key to understanding the present can often be found in the murkiest corners of the past.

The year is 1907 and Maurice Ravel is one of the most admired but also most controversial composers in France. An aloof, dandyish figure, he is at the centre of a group of rebellious artists who call themselves the Apaches. It is considered a scandal that he has never won the Prix de Rome, despite entering compositions for it several times. As for his personal life, he has no known attachments, and no one seems to know whether his romantic leanings incline him towards men, or women, or neither.In December, Ravel takes on a new pupil: a rising British composer who is two years his senior, and has come to Paris for three months specifically to study with him. His name is Ralph Vaughan Williams.The two men could hardly be more different. Ralph is down-to-earth, married, and currently engaged in a long-term project of collecting forgotten British folk songs - a musical form in which Ravel has no interest. All they have in common is that in clear but indefinable ways, each of them seems an archetypal representative of his own country. One of them 'typically French', the other 'so English'. And yet this will be the beginning of a deep friendship - one which will come to symbolise the new, tentative alliance between France and Britain in the run-up to the First World War.