Trezza Azzopardi

Azzopardi transforms a medieval heroine who wont be silenced into brave 1970s girl from downtown Splott who always seems to get the last word. The original Enid defends her misguided knight husband by warning him of danger, even though forbidden to speak. The new young Enid is also unlikely to respect a gagging order. The Tip of My Tongue is the ninth in Serens series of ten New Stories from the Mabinogion.

With an introduction by D J Taylor My father would have flipped a coin and watched his fate come twirling down to earth. Dolores is the youngest of six daughters. Growing up in the 1960s in Cardiff's poverty stricken Tiger Bay, her life is cursed from the start when, on the day of her birth, her father gambles and loses everything on a bet that Delores will be a boy. As Dolores grows older, we see this strange underworld through her eyes: Tiger Bay is a place of gaming rooms and cafes, of crumbling houses and burning secrets, and for Dolores and her sisters, their home is a dangerous place, filled equally by fear and love. Thirty years later, the estranged sisters return to Tiger Bay for their mother's funeral. It is a time of consolation, of memories and nightmares, and a chance for Dolores to understand the tragedy that has shaped her existence. The Hiding Place is a deeply moving and intensely lyrical novel about love and betrayal. Shortlisted for the 2000 Booker Prize, it portrays the life of a child condemned forever to bear the mark of a disintegrating family.

When Kenneth Earl realises his memory is failing, he advertises for someone to help him catalogue his vast collection of music, and so create a record of his life. Maggie, the final candidate, is his last hope. But he doesn't guess when he gives her the job that the archive will be as much about her past as his - because this isn't the first time that Maggie has been to Earl House, and it's no coincidence that she applied for the post...'Slowly, and in Azzopardi's melodic, lyrical prose the secrets of Maggie's childhood are revealed, full of loss and longing, unfaithful loves and bad choices'

This novel comes from the author of "The Hiding Place" and "Remember Me". Lewis has a problem, and it won't go away. He knows exactly when it started: when he and his twin brother were racing in a stolen car driven by the sociopathic Carl, and teenage twocing turned to tragedy. Lewis had to learn to face the world alone - which he has done with a limited amount of success. Anna's immediate problem is her mother, Rita, who runs a boarding house in Yarmouth. She has suffered a fall, and really ought to be cared for by someone other than her only paying guest (if that is indeed his status), the retired music-hall star Vernon Savoy (aka 'Cabbage', ho ho). So Anna leaves her London life behind and grimly sets off to do her duty. As Lewis and Anna, both solitary drifters, search for solutions, their lives become entangled in the most unexpected ways, and they find themselves having to face troubling truths about who they are, how they got there and what they might become - with electrifying consequences.Told against the backdrop of the Norfolk coast, with its huge skies and the silver-grey North Sea pounding at its shores, "Winterton Blue" is an enthralling novel from the Booker-shortlisted author of "The Hiding Place" and "Remember Me". In prose that touches the sublime, Trezza Azzopardi tells a haunting, funny and sad story, one that never lets the reader go. Praise for "Remember Me": 'Azzopardi's writing really does glisten on the page, sparkling and dancing in the light...This is an often brutal novel that provides both a cerebral and an emotional treat, not something you come across every day...remarkable' - "Sunday Herald."

La atenta mirada de Dolores, la menor de las cinco hijas de la familia Gauci, nos guía por los bajos fondos de la comunidad maltesa de Cardiff, Gales, en los años sesenta. El destino de su familia se vera truncado por la tiranica personalidad de su padre, compulsivo y pendenciero jugador, y la desesperacion de su madre. Con el tono complice de la infancia y el poder emotivo de sus recuerdos reconstruye una epoca elocuentemente dificil.Comparada por la critica con Las cenizas de Angela, de Frank McCourt, El escondite es un poderoso homenaje a la supervivencia, a la inocencia y al terror de la infancia. Con una prosa sumamente instintiva y persuasiva, con un delicado sentido del lenguaje, Trezza Azzopardi nos guia por cafes y bares, barrios en decadencia, salas de juego y por los secretos que pueden destruir a una familia.Azzopardi se vale de una escritura de extraordinaria sensibilidad y de un poder literario incuestionable. Los lectores se veran cautivados por este poema en prosa de corte psicologico acerca de una familia unida tan solo por el desamparo y la desesperacion en un rincon perdido del mundo, raramente evocado en las novelas.Publishers Weekl.