Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jul 2011
288 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Lying in front of Harrison Opuku is a body, the body of one of his classmates, a boy known for his crazy basketball skills, who seems to have been murdered for his dinner.
Armed with a pair of camouflage binoculars and detective techniques absorbed from television shows like CSI, Harri and his best friend, Dean, plot to bring the perpetrator to justice. They gather evidence—fingerprints lifted from windows with tape, a wallet stained with blood—and lay traps to flush out the murderer. But nothing can prepare them for what happens when a criminal feels you closing in on him.
"Kelman's debut novel is a well-tuned if simplistic portrait of a kid's life in the housing projects of London." - Publishers Weekly
"If your patrons liked Roddy Doyle's Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and if they rooted for Jamal Malik in Slumdog Millionaire, they will love Harri Opuku." - Library Journal
"Even a kid as feisty and ingratiating as Harri can overstay his welcome. A pity, because brief snatches of his embryonic wit, street smarts and survival instincts are about as hutious as it gets." - Kirkus
"[C]harm and peril are on full display in Stephen Kelman's first novel…[a] mixture of ridiculous observations and accidental insights makes Pigeon English continually surprising and endearing…Whether [Harrison's] explaining the rules of farting or the tragedy of gang killings, there's a sweetness here that's irresistible." - The Washington Post, Ron Charles
"Pigeon English is a book to fall in love with: a funny book, a true book, a shattering book ... If you loved Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time or Emma Donoghue’s Man Booker–shortlisted Room, you’ll love this book too." - The Times (UK)
"Fantastic ... it seems hard to believe this is the author’s first book." - Guardian (UK)
This information about Pigeon English was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Stephen Kelman grew up in the housing projects of Luton, England. He has worked as a careworker, a warehouse operative, in marketing, and in local government administration. Pigeon English was shortlisted for the Desmond Elliot Prize and was named a "best first novel of 2011" by Waterstones bookstores in his native England; it will be published in twenty countries.
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