Pigeon English
Mar 2011 · Bloomsbury Publishing
4.2star
18 reviewsreport
Ebook
288
Pages
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About this ebook
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and Guardian First Book Award
'Pigeon English is a book to fall in love with: a funny book, a true book, a shattering book' The Times
'Simultaneously accurate and fantastical, this boy's love letter to the world made me laugh and tremble all the way through. Pigeon English is a triumph' Emma Donoghue, author of Room
Eleven-year-old Harrison Opoku, the second best runner in Year 7, races through his new life in England with his personalised trainers - the Adidas stripes drawn on with marker pen - blissfully unaware of the very real threat around him.
Newly arrived from Ghana with his mother and older sister Lydia, Harri absorbs the many strange elements of city life, from the bewildering array of Haribo sweets, to the frightening, fascinating gang of older boys from his school. But his life is changed forever when one of his friends is murdered.
As the victim's nearly new football boots hang in tribute on railings behind fluorescent tape and a police appeal draws only silence, Harri decides to act, unwittingly endangering the fragile web his mother has spun around her family to keep them safe.
From Autumn 2015, Stephen Kelman's deeply funny, moving idiosyncratic and unforgettable novel will be an AQA GCSE English Literature set text.
'Pigeon English is a book to fall in love with: a funny book, a true book, a shattering book' The Times
'Simultaneously accurate and fantastical, this boy's love letter to the world made me laugh and tremble all the way through. Pigeon English is a triumph' Emma Donoghue, author of Room
Eleven-year-old Harrison Opoku, the second best runner in Year 7, races through his new life in England with his personalised trainers - the Adidas stripes drawn on with marker pen - blissfully unaware of the very real threat around him.
Newly arrived from Ghana with his mother and older sister Lydia, Harri absorbs the many strange elements of city life, from the bewildering array of Haribo sweets, to the frightening, fascinating gang of older boys from his school. But his life is changed forever when one of his friends is murdered.
As the victim's nearly new football boots hang in tribute on railings behind fluorescent tape and a police appeal draws only silence, Harri decides to act, unwittingly endangering the fragile web his mother has spun around her family to keep them safe.
From Autumn 2015, Stephen Kelman's deeply funny, moving idiosyncratic and unforgettable novel will be an AQA GCSE English Literature set text.
Ratings and reviews
4.2
18 reviews
Matthew Talbot
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February 18, 2014
Its a funny and amazing gut wrenchingly sad novel describing perfectly harrisons way of looking at things.personally I read this at school and I was on the floor laughing how this lovely sad novel can be yhe funniest and most outright outrageous inwill neer know
2 people found this review helpful
Samantha Montague-Duffill
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April 12, 2017
Absolutely loved this book.
1 person found this review helpful
Khatra Cadmeed
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September 22, 2014
So interesting talks about everyday problems
2 people found this review helpful
About the author
Stephen Kelman was born in Luton in 1976. After finishing his degree he worked variously as a warehouse operative, a careworker, and in marketing and local government administration. He decided to pursue his writing seriously in 2005, and has completed several feature screenplays since then. Pigeon English is his first novel; he is currently working on his second.
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