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Allan Jenkins / Greenfeast

In celebration of Nigel Slater's Greenfeast: autumn, winter publishing this October, we asked some 4th Estate authors to write a few words about veg-minded living. Allan Jenkins, author of Plot 29 and Morning: "Winter came close to my kitchen last week. I had been lazing in late summer, eating endless varieties of salad and baked ratatouille, made mostly with shallots and various squash from our organic allotment at the top of Hampstead. I was surrounded by sunflowers, chest-high marigolds and fragrant flowering coriander. Plot 29 was in its pomp. Read More

50 Rose Tower by Oluchi Ezeh

The summer before our family fell apart, a legend started on our estate. I was ten at the time, and like every other ten year old, all I wanted to do was spend summer riding around on my bike at the park near our house. The climbing frames in the park were rusty and completely discoloured – unless whoever built them had intended brown to be the colour of childhood excitement – so it didn’t appeal to many parents as an afterschool site. Also, I’m pretty sure that drug dealers used to hang out there but I never met any, so how much of a presence could they have been really, you know? Read More

The Cat by The Incredible Jimmy Smith by Sonia Hope

1964: the year his marriage ended. The year his record stopped spinning, the needle in his groove lifted haltingly, and with a snap returned his tone arm to its cradle. Read More

Once we were Warriors by Jameen Kaur

‘Check the time and date properly on the ticket. I don’t want us getting a fine. I’m still paying off your brother’s overdraft,’ said Mum, as she pulled herself out of the car. Read More

Packed Lunch by Jenna Mahale

MISE EN PLACE: the preparation of dishes and ingredients before the beginning of service Though he might not like to admit it, my dad has always been good with food. He has a talent for improvising kitchen cupboard scraps into a meal, transforming stale bread and old sun-dried tomatoes into delicious bruschetta, or producing delicate crudités from vegetable drawer remnants. He has an innate sense of what flavours pair well together, and an ability to plate things in the artful way they do in restaurants. He often denies this gift, brushing off compliments by saying he can only make snack-food, which is really just his way of saying he doesn’t want to cook for the household. Read More

Deep Heart by Kandace Siobhan Walker

We are always barefoot. I try to explain this to the police officers who arrive from the mainland. We’re quieter this way and we need to be quiet when we’re stalking wild animals in the pine forest. Heaven walks in front because she’s the oldest, then me because I’m the youngest, then Bluebird at the rear. When I tell the black policeman we were hunting, Heaven shakes her head. She tells him we were at home. He looks at me, then her, then back at me. We’re sitting at the kitchen table, the soles of our feet muddy and bleeding. Well, says the officer, which one is it? Read More

The Hyacinth Girls by Arenike Adebajo

The rainy season brought rumours. Whispers of poison after a mass recall of Indomie noodles. A girl in Form 3 reappearing after several months with family in Maryland, withdrawn. Lurid headlines warned of cults, front pages daubed with blurry corpses. There were mutterings that the pastor of the Shining Light Ministry had not succumbed to a brief illness as had been announced to his congregation. Suicide. A word breathed into neighbours’ ears along pews. They said the body would never have been found if the hyacinth had not bloomed so late. Read More

Food from 4th: Yogurt-baked onions with sumac from Anja Dunk

A handful of Turkish food stalls are present at every German market. Indeed, Turkish flavours and in particular their spices have become embedded in the national cuisine ever since the first guest workers came over in the 1960s. Read More

THE MIRROR & THE LIGHT

In March 2020, 4th Estate will publish THE MIRROR & THE LIGHT, the final novel of Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy. Read More

Visiting J.G. Ballard’s House

“Politics for the age of cable TV. Fleeting impressions, an illusion of meaning floating over a sea of undefined emotions. We’re talking about a virtual politics unconnected to any reality, one which redefines reality as itself.” – Kingdom Come (2006). Read More

George RR Martin reviews The Ravenmaster

In Game of Thrones, the Three-Eyed Raven is the keeper of prophecy. Christopher Skaife, Ravenmaster at the Tower of London, predicts you may wish to buy his new book after this endorsement from George RR Martin... Read More

Black History Month: Why We All Need Iconic Literary Characters of Colour. And Why They Don’t Need to be Role Models.

When London-based activists Legally Black put up bus-stop posters of unknown black ‘actors’ featuring in blockbuster movies such as Harry Potter, jaws dropped at the simple power of the message, and minds were changed even as headlines were made. The activists were telling the world ‘We want to see characters that look like us. We’re here.’ Read More