Vauxhall

1970s London: Young Michael runs past the railway arches and terraces of Vauxhall. Reaching the street on which he lives, he witnesses a young girl fall from a window, her sari floating down behind her. Her lifeless body lies crumpled on the ground. This incident marks the beginning of a period in which Michael's life threatens to unravel. From his sister's taunts to a series of house fires, police harassment, his parents' crumbling marriage and the realisation that the council intends to clear out the slum he calls home, he learns to navigate his way through an array of obstacles, big and small. 'An extraordinary debut novel, Vauxhall tells a warm and hopeful story of a young boy and the city that surrounds him. A tenderly observed, fascinating portrait of a childhood in South London, as it moves from post-war darkness into an uncertain new era.' Blake Morrison, author of South of the River 'Only a poet could have written Vauxhall - clean, swift and with flashes of lightning' Bonnie Greer 'Immediately appealing, this is quite an odyssey through the maelstrom that London was in the 1970s. A remarkable achievement' Brian Chikwava|1970s London: Young Michael runs past the railway arches and terraces of Vauxhall. Reaching the street on which he lives, he witnesses a young girl fall from a window, her sari floating down behind her. Her lifeless body lies crumpled on the ground. This incident marks the beginning of a period in which Michael's life threatens to unravel. From his sister's taunts to a series of house fires, police harassment, his parents' crumbling marriage and the realisation that the council intends to clear out the slum he calls home, he learns to navigate his way through an array of obstacles, big and small. An extraordinary debut novel, Vauxhall tells a warm and hopeful story of a young boy and the city that surrounds him. 'A tenderly observed, fascinating portrait of a childhood in South London, as it moves from post-war darkness into an uncertain new era.' Blake Morrison, author of South of the River. — 'Only a poet could have written Vauxhall - clean, swift and with flashes of lightning' Bonnie Greer. — 'Immediately appealing, this is quite an odyssey through the maelstrom that London was in the 1970s. A remarkable achievement' Brian Chikwava 1970s London: Young Michael runs past the railway arches and terraces of Vauxhall. Reaching the street on which he lives, he witnesses a young girl fall from a window, her sari floating down behind her. Her lifeless body lies crumpled on the ground. This incident marks the beginning of a period in which Michael's life threatens to unravel. From his sister's taunts to a series of house fires, police harassment, his parents' crumbling marriage and the realisation that the council intends to clear out the 'slum' he calls home, he learns to navigate his way through an array of obstacles, big and small. An extraordinary debut novel, Vauxhall tells a warm and hopeful story of a young boy and the city that surrounds him. Gabriel Gbadamosi is an Irish-Nigerian poet, playwright and essayist born in London. He was AHRC Creative and Performing Arts Fellow at the Pinter Centre, Goldsmiths, and a Judith E. Wilson Fellow for creative writing at Cambridge University. His plays include Shango, Hotel Orpheu and for radio The Long, Hot Summer of '76 (BBC Radio 3), which won the Richard Imison Award. He has presented Night Waves on BBC Radio 3 and Art Beat on the World Service. Vauxhall is his first novel. (http://www.gabrielgbadamosi.com) www.gabrielgbadamosi.com . Police, methylated tramps, Nigerian royalty, gypsies, Irish aunts, teachers, thieves, cockneys and homesick Jamaicans clamour for young Michael's attention. His world is bursting with all walks of Lambeth life in the early 1970s. Among the terraces, railway arches, bombsites and river mud of Vauxhall, he discovers the meaning of slum clearance: the world he knows is disappearing. As his certainty in the fragile world around him begins to crumble so too does his parent's relationship and his mother's health. Vauxhall is a tender and occasionally dark portrait of a child looking for his place in inner city London Vauxhall is a tender and occasionally dark portrait of a child growing up and looking for his place in inner city London. A debut novel that is populated by a stunning aray of charcters, who bring to life the experience of growing up in this part of south London during the early 1970's.