Join Manchester Literature Festival and Comma Press for a special event to launch The Book of Manchester. Edited by poet Lemn Sissay and Comma Press editor David Sue, the collection explores the transformation of the city from post-war, post-industrial decline to the aspirational ‘Manctopia’. In ‘The Cat’s Mother’ by Tom Benn (Oxblood) an absent mother returns and brings a criminal gang into her son’s life. In ‘Shock City’ by Sophie Parkes (Out of Human Sight) a young man observes a Saturday night gathering from his flat balcony above the Square in Ancoats. In ‘The Headteacher’ by Okechukwu Nzelu (Here Again Now) the husband of a retiring headteacher entertains colleagues and previous pupils in their new house in Altrincham.

Plus special guests.

Tom Benn is an author and screenwriter. His latest novel Oxblood won the Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award. His first novel The Doll’s Princess was shortlisted for the Portico Prize.

Sophie Parkes is a novelist, short story writer and non-fiction writer. Her novel Out of Human Sight was shortlisted for the NorthBound Book Award at the 2021 Northern Writers' Awards. Her first book, Wayward Daughter, was a biography of contemporary folk singer Eliza Carthy.

Okechukwu Nzelu is a novelist. His last novel Here Again Now was shortlisted for the RSL Encore Award, the Polari Prize and the Diverse Books Awards. His debut novel The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney won a Betty Trask Award.

Presented by Manchester Literature Festival and Comma Press