"A punchy, poetic, soulfully impactful social realist account of a boy’s journey through the care system to adulthood."
Beginning with an address to Anansi, the trickster story teller god of African folklore, (“Anansi, your four gifts raised to nyame granted you no power over the stories I tell”), Derek Owusu’s That Reminds Me is a one-of-a-kind reading experience. K’s story will break your heart, and heal it. And Owusu’s writing will leave you stunned - it’s that unique, that honest, that impactful.
K is a working-class boy born to Ghanaian parents in Tottenham. Fostered as a child, he’s relocated to an unfamiliar rural environment, where there are woods and fields instead of flats and video shops. When he returns to London at the age of eleven, the city has become alien to him - and his birth parents have too. Once again K must re-find himself. Piece himself together, and perhaps find friendship and love along with his identity.
Told through K’s fragmented memories, this is an exceptional coming-of-age story that lingers long in the soul.
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| Primary Genre | Modern and Contemporary Fiction |
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WINNER OF THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE 2020
Anansi, your four gifts raised to nyame granted you no power over the stories I tell...
This is the story of K.
K is sent into care before a year marks his birth. He grows up in fields and woods, and he is happy, he thinks. When K is eleven, the city reclaims him. He returns to an unknown mother and a part-time father, trading the fields for flats and a community that is alien to him. Slowly, he finds friends. Eventually, he finds love. He learns how to navigate the city. But as he grows, he begins to realise that he needs more than the city can provide. He is a man made of pieces. Pieces that are slowly breaking apart.
That Reminds Me is the story of one young man, from birth to adulthood, told in fragments of memory. It explores questions of identity, belonging, addiction, sexuality, violence, family and religion. It is a deeply moving and completely original work of literature from one of the brightest British writers of today.
That Reminds Me features in the following genres: Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Sharing Diverse Voices, Shorter Reads, Star Books, General Fiction, Fiction, Fiction: special features, Recommendations
That Reminds Me is available in Paperback, Hardback
That Reminds Me was written by Derek Owusu and published by Merky Books an imprint of Cornerstone
That Reminds Me has 116 pages
£8.99
