Our Authors
Guy Kennaway
Guy Kennaway’s last novel - One People (Canongate, 1998) - was his third. He has been the recipient of the Hawthornden Fellowship, runner-up in the Shiva Naipul Prize in 1989 and the winner of the Collins Scottish Short Story Competition (1986). One People was the fruit of a great deal of time spent in Jamaica.
‘This year’s funniest, most thoroughly likeable novel ... a fantastical yet believable microcosm of life ... Kennaway has succeeded in following in the footsteps of his acknowledged model - Garrison Keillor’
GQ
‘Follow my advice: take One People, mix with a bottle of wine and some ‘herbal’ cigarettes, find a tree, sit down and enjoy. Unbeatable’
The Big Issue
‘Kennaway has a superb eye for lower-case eccentrics, the strangeness of familiar rituals and the intimacies of the seemingly trivial. Like Garrison Keillor, but with stronger material’
Arena
Books by Guy Kennaway
The Summer Festival
A hugely accessible and extremely funny tale from an acclaimed novelist.
Summer Festival is the story of a shoddily run provincial arts festival – managed by a host of well-meaning but hapless locals (who wouldn’t look out of place on ‘The Office’).
Despite mishap after mishap, they gather together a number of recognisable figures from the worlds of music, art and literature – the fading Radio 4 wit, the drug-crazed installation artist, the right-wing African vocal group (singing ‘Free Nelson Mandela’ through gritted teeth), the woeful amateur dramatic group and the best-selling ex-dope smuggler.
And though ticket sales fail to soar, it’s simply a result that no one is divorced or dead by the end, and thoughts can turn to next year’s festival …
All Rights Available
76,000 words
One People
This is ‘Northern Exposure’ in an agreeable climate. Guy Kennaway’s delightful novel evokes brilliantly the unique culture of Jamaica and in particular the small community of Campbell Cove where everybody has a say in everything, no dispute is too petty, no relationship inconsequential and there’s no such thing as a secret.
World Rights: Jenny Brown Associates
Back A Yard
Much has changed in Campbell Cove in the ten years since we last heard from this fishing village on the shores of Caribbean. Blackie has painted half the Shed sky blue, the coconut tree by Rayon’s bar has started to bear fruit, Praises has made a new bar stool and is working on a second, (estimated date of completion mid 21st Century) and all the little picknee that used to run around the village have grown up and been replaced by a new set.
The sign that said Welcome to Campbell Cove has fallen off its pole.
Apart from that, not a lot is different. The sun still rises over the four forested hills every morning, the gentle ocean still laps at the beach and daily gives up a modest harvest of fish, and the proud, beautiful and bright people of the Cove still go about the business of keeping the outside world – with all its pressures and imperatives – at a safe distance, while fully embracing all its pleasures.
World Rights: Jenny Brown Associates
Sunbathing Naked
Sunbathing Naked is one man’s quest to understand the skin we’re in and why we’re all so obsessed with it.
From the waiting rooms of Harley Street to the naked-sunbathing terraces of the Dead Sea, Kennaway navigates a multitude of cures for the incurable, telling his own provocative tale alongside the stories of a riotous identity-parade of doctors, quacks, patients and the smooth-skinned few that he meets along the way.
This smart, hilarious and upbeat memoir is for anyone who has ever tried to cover up a spot, or felt their body was less than perfect.
World Rights: Canongate Books
