Karen McCarthy Woolf – författare

'Extraordinarily inventive, witty, moving and profound.' Bernardine Evaristo'If you read one novel this year, let it be Top Doll. This is innovative, exquisitely crafted storytelling at its finest.' Malika Booker When reclusive billionaire Huguette Clark dies age 104, she leaves behind a suite of New York apartments, a meticulously upkept California mansion, at least one Monet and her vast collection of antique dolls. Having barely been outside for 50 years, the elusive Clark spoke to few--in this highly unreliable, semi-fictional miniature epic, the dolls tell all. Theirs is a tale that takes us from their lavish Park Avenue home back in time to the slave plantations of Virginia and the palaces of Imperial Japan via the addictive hedonism of 1930s queer LA. Joyfully irreverent, Top Doll is a story of love, betrayal, Barbies and ultimately, what it means to be human.'An astonishing combination of depth, compassion and beauty. A constant series of delicious surprises.' Leone Ross ***Praise for An Aviary of Small Birds:'Beautiful, painful, pitch-perfect . . . McCarthy Woolf's tuning fork always rings true.' Guardian'I loved Karen McCarthy Woolf's technically perfect poems of winged heartbreak.' Maggie Gee, The ObserverPraise for Seasonal Disturbances:'A strange and stunning collection from a true writer. Vulnerable, hilarious and wise.' Warsan Shire'An unclassifiable book, revolutionary in its engagement with form, stunning in its intersectional politics, and an extraordinary achievement . . . It will break you, in a good way.' Poetry School Books of the Year 2017

'Extraordinarily inventive, witty, moving and profound.' Bernardine Evaristo'If you read one novel this year, let it be Top Doll. This is innovative, exquisitely crafted storytelling at its finest.' Malika BookerWhen reclusive billionaire Huguette Clark dies age 104, she leaves behind a suite of New York apartments, a meticulously upkept California mansion, at least one Monet and her vast collection of antique dolls. Having barely been outside for 50 years, the elusive Clark spoke to few--in this highly unreliable, semi-fictional miniature epic, the dolls tell all.Theirs is a tale that takes us from their lavish Park Avenue home back in time to the slave plantations of Virginia and the palaces of Imperial Japan via the addictive hedonism of 1930s queer LA.Joyfully irreverent, Top Doll is a story of love, betrayal, Barbies and ultimately, what it means to be human.'An astonishing combination of depth, compassion and beauty. A constant series of delicious surprises.' Leone Ross***Praise for An Aviary of Small Birds:'Beautiful, painful, pitch-perfect . . . McCarthy Woolf's tuning fork always rings true.' Guardian'I loved Karen McCarthy Woolf's technically perfect poems of winged heartbreak.' Maggie Gee, The ObserverPraise for Seasonal Disturbances:'A strange and stunning collection from a true writer. Vulnerable, hilarious and wise.' Warsan Shire'An unclassifiable book, revolutionary in its engagement with form, stunning in its intersectional politics, and an extraordinary achievement . . . It will break you, in a good way.' Poetry School Books of the Year 2017

Shortlisted for the T. S. ELIOT and the JHALAK PRIZE FOR POETRY'Extraordinarily inventive, witty, moving and profound.' Bernardine Evaristo'If you read one novel this year, let it be Top Doll. This is innovative, exquisitely crafted storytelling at its finest.' Malika BookerWhen reclusive billionaire Huguette Clark dies age 104, she leaves behind a suite of New York apartments, a meticulously upkept California mansion, at least one Monet and her vast collection of antique dolls. Having barely been outside for 50 years, the elusive Clark spoke to few--in this highly unreliable, semi-fictional miniature epic, the dolls tell all.Theirs is a tale that takes us from their lavish Park Avenue home back in time to the slave plantations of Virginia and the palaces of Imperial Japan via the addictive hedonism of 1930s queer LA.Joyfully irreverent, Top Doll is a story of love, betrayal, Barbies and ultimately, what it means to be human.'An astonishing combination of depth, compassion and beauty. A constant series of delicious surprises.' Leone Ross

'The most important anthology of the year.' Guardian Best Poetry Books Revitalising conversations around environmentalism and ecopoetics, this new gathering of African, Asian and Caribbean diaspora voices is both urgent and inspirational.There has been a welcome surge of nature writing in recent years. Yet this has raised questions as to whose voices are privileged and heard in a space predominantly occupied by Western European traditions and authors. In Nature Matters, poets Mona Arshi and Karen McCarthy Woolf seek to redress this imbalance. Their genre-enriching anthology presents brand-new commissions alongside formative works from the past fifty years that invite us to reconsider nature poetry from global-majority perspectives. Image-rich and formally diverse, the poems explore fundamental and ecological themes including climate crisis and the Anthropocene; urban nature, solitude and alienation; protest and radical empathy; Indigenous wisdom and alternative histories.'A vigorous and timely hymn to the universality of nature. It's amazing that Nature Matters hasn't existed until now.' Sathnam Sanghera'An exquisitely profound and groundbreaking testament to our natural world by many of the most powerful poetic voices of our times.' Bernardine Evaristo'This anthology is a revelation.' Guardian Best Recent PoetryContributors:Victoria Adukwei Bulley, John Agard, Jason Allen-Paisant, Moniza Alvi, Anthony Anaxagorou, Raymond Antrobus, Mona Arshi, Andre Bagoo, Khairani Barokka, Dzifa Benson, Jay Bernard, Sujata Bhatt, Malika Booker, Kamau Brathwaite, Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, Anthony Vahni Capildeo, Mary Jean Chan, Kayo Chingonyi, David Dabydeen, Fred D'Aguiar, Kwame Dawes, Imtiaz Dharker, Tishani Doshi, Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe, Inua Ellams, Richard Georges, Lorna Goodison, Mina Gorji, Will Harris, Ranjit Hoskote, Sarah Howe, Ian Humphreys, Sharan Hunjan, Ishion Hutchinson, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Anthony Joseph, Bhanu Kapil, Jackie Kay, Mimi Khalvati, Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa, Zaffar Kunial, Hannah Lowe, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Roy McFarlane, Nick Makoha, E. A. Markham, Momtaza Mehri, Kei Miller, Daljit Nagra, Karthika Naïr, Grace Nichols, Selina Nwulu, Gboyega Odubanjo, Oluwaseun Olayiwola, Nii Parkes, Sandeep Parmar, Pascale Petit, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Alycia Pirmohamed, Nina Mingya Powles, Taz Rahman, A. K. Ramanujan, Nisha Ramayya, Shivanee Ramlochan, Vidyan Ravinthiran, Roger Robinson, Denise Saul, Seni Seneviratne, Olive Senior, Warsan Shire, Jeet Thayil, Marvin Thompson, Derek Walcott, Kandace Siobhan Walker, Rushika Wick, Jennifer Wong and Benjamin Zephaniah.

POETRY BOOK SOCIETY CHOICEThe third collection from T. S. Eliot Prize-shortlisted poet, essayist and editor Karen McCarthy Woolf'A work of intense epiphany' ROGER ROBINSON'Unsafe will stay with me forever' SAFIA ELHILLO'As urgent as it is meditative and thought provoking' PRETI TANEJA____________________________________________________A disenchanted walk through the afterlives of colonialism across London and LA, Unsafe illuminates the effects of capitalism on those who live at its sharp end.Situated in the midst of a reckoning with a politics of enclosure, Unsafe is an immersive meditation on place, the body, nature and the self. Whether it’s via tattoos, trees or the totemic quality of cats, McCarthy Woolf pulls us into the processes of gentrification and class division with an immediacy that makes them impossible to ignore.A moving, critical and highly intuitive epic weaving together poetry, documentary and lyric essay, Unsafe is an interrogation of what it means to be a citizen and testimony to the remaining spaces we can call free.____________________________________________________'One of the most intellectually daring writers of our generation' MONA ARSHI'McCarthy Woolf possesses a rare, uncanny power' KIT FAN

Ten: the new wave presents poetry from some of the most exciting new poets in Britain today. These ten poets were selected for The Complete Works 2 mentoring project, a groundbreaking initiative to promote diversity and quality in British poetry, initiated by the writer Bernardine Evaristo. The poets follow on from the first group to take part in this scheme, whose work was published in Bernardine Evaristo and Daljit Nagra's anthology Ten: new poets from Spread the Word (2010). Most of those poets have gone on to win awards and have their poetry collections published. The new poets in this anthology are Mona Arshi, Jay Bernard, Kayo Chingonyi, Rishi Dastidar, Edward Doegar, Inua Ellams, Sarah Howe, Adam Lowe, Eileen Pun and Warsan Shire. These poets have backgrounds in Asia, Europe, the Caribbean and Africa, and their work draws on their multicultural heritage and tapestry. Many of them also work across art forms and have enjoyed success as playwrights, graphic artists and even in the martial arts. Talented, adventurous and culturally rich, these poets will open up new landscapes for the reader.

Ten: poets of the new generation presents the work of ten exciting British poets from diverse backgrounds. It is the third anthology from The Complete Works poetry mentoring scheme, a national programme supporting exceptional black and Asian poets founded by the writer Bernardine Evaristo in 2007. Already making a big impact on the British poetry scene, poets from the series have included Sarah Howe, the 2016 winner of both the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award; Mona Arshi, winner of the Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2016; and Warsan Shire, who collaborated with Beyonce on her visual album, Lemonade in 2016, which featured many of Shire's poems. This latest anthology in the Ten series will not disappoint readers hoping to discover more exceptional talent. It includes poets with even more diverse backgrounds ranging from Somalia and Nigeria through to Jamaica and the multiculturalism of Macau, and features the first poet from Latin America. These are poets who interrogate race and explode any ideas of a page/stage divide. Fierce, unexpected, sometimes beautiful and always passionate, here are ten poets to savour and enjoy. The poets included are: Raymond Antrobus, Natacha Bryan, Leonardo Boix, Victoria Adukwei Bulley, Will Harris, Ian Humphreys, Jennifer Lee Tsai, Momtaza Mehri, Yomi Sode and Degna Stone. The Complete Works III is directed by Dr Nathalie Teitler, with thanks to Arts Council England for their generous funding. Copublication with The Complete Works III.

In 2008 the level of poets of colour published by major presses was less than 1%. By 2020 it was over 20%. The Complete Works Poetry – an initiative spearheaded by Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo – played a significant role in this change. Supporting 30 poets from 2008 through to 2020, The Complete Works produced an unprecedented number of prizewinners, including the Forward Prizes (3), T.S. Eliot Prize (2), Ted Hughes Award (2), Somerset Maugham Award, Dylan Thomas Prize, Rathbones Folio Prize and Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. TCW Fellows have also gone on to judge every major poetry award, and to take on significant roles in academia and translation, publishing over 40 collections.The Complete Works has become the most successful collective ever formed in British poetry. Mapping the Future offers new work by all 30 writers the programme has supported, including Warsan Shire, Raymond Antrobus, Mona Arshi, Roger Robinson, Inua Ellams, Malika Booker, Sarah Howe, Will Harris, Kayo Chingonyi, Jay Bernard, Yomi Sode and Karen McCarthy Woolf. It also includes highly personal and politically engaged essays re-drawing the map of British poetry by 10 of the 30 poets, touching on some of the most significant topics of our time.Mapping the Future is not just a magnificent anthology of some of the best UK poets, it is also an exploration on how poetry in Britain has become much more inclusive over the past 15 years: what has been won, and what is still being fought for. This anthology offers a timely insight into British poetry and how the voice of the ‘other’ continues to take centre-stage in pivotal times.Mapping the Future is edited by poet Karen McCarthy Woolf, editor of the second two Ten anthologies in The Complete Works series, with Dr Nathalie Teitler, director of The Complete Works.

'A strange and stunning collection from a true writer. Vulnerable, hilarious and wise, Seasonal Disturbances is a darkly humorous exploration of the human condition.'Young Poet Laureate for London, Warsan Shire Second Place Winner of the 2020 Laurel Prize for EcopoetryA 2017 Poetry Book Society RecommendationFollowing her groundbreaking 2014 début An Aviary of Small Birds (‘technically perfect poems of winged heartbreak’ – Observer), Karen McCarthy Woolf returns with Seasonal Disturbances. Set against a backdrop of ecological and emotional turbulence, these poems are charged yet meditative explorations of nature, the city, and the self. A sinister CEO presides over a dystopian hinterland where private detectives investigate crimes against hollyhocks; Halcyon is discovered as a dead kingfisher, washed up on an Italian beach. Lyrical and inventive, McCarthy Woolf’s poems test classic and contemporary forms, from a disrupted zuihitsu that considers her relationship with water, to the landay, golden shovel, and gram of &.As a fifth-generation Londoner and daughter of a Jamaican émigré, McCarthy Woolf makes a variety of linguistic subversions that critique the rhetoric of the British class system. Political as they may be, these poems are not reportage: they aim to inspire what the author describes as an ‘activism of the heart, where we connect to and express forces of renewal and love’.Cover Illustration: Nuri R. Melgarejo

An Aviary of Small Birds is both elegy to a stillborn son and testament to the redemptive qualities of poetry as a transformative art. Here, birth paradoxically becomes the moment of death when, after long labour, the baby's heart gives out. However, just a grief is not linear, so too the book follows an emotional rather than a chronological arc. Ultimately, it is a closely felt connection with nature that allows the author to transcend the experience and honour the spirit of her son.