Pig (novel) explained
Pig |
Author: | Andrew Cowan |
Country: | United Kingdom |
Language: | English |
Publisher: | Michael Joseph |
Release Date: | 30 Aug 1994 |
Media Type: | Print |
Pages: | 213 |
Isbn: | 0-718-13783-3 |
Pig, is the debut novel of English author Andrew Cowan. Published in 1994 it won the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, a Betty Trask Award, the Ruth Hadden Memorial Award, the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award and a Scottish Council Book Award,[1] and was shortlisted for five other awards.[2]
Plot introduction
Pig is a coming-of-age story set in a bleak post-industrial English new town as told by 15 year-old narrator Danny. The eponymous pig is kept by Danny's grandparents in a run-down cottage, but when his grandmother dies and his grandfather is placed in a nursing home, Danny starts looking after the elderly pig. With his Indian girlfriend Surinder he creates a haven away from his racist neighbours and stifling family.
Inspiration
The book took the author six years to write and commemorated his first girlfriend and his own grandfather.[3] Its setting and context were based on the town of Corby where the author grew up.[4] After many rejections from publishers Cowan sent off a manuscript to the Betty Trask Awards and won £7,000. Within days of winning the award Cowan received 12 letters from publishers interested in the book.[3]
Reception
- A solid, strong effort from a prize-winning Scottish-born writer who peers closely into the struggles of a sensitive boy as he tries to hold on to those things most precious to him....[A] small but excellent tale of contemporary English society." - Kirkus Reviews, 07/15/1996[5]
- "Mostly, Mr. Cowan's prose is plain as a pikestaff, earnestly fixed on the physical world. But his minimalism is not of the frozen or portentous type....The author's dispassionate gaze carries with it great compassion....[T]he book is a coming-of-age story as strange and surprising, in its way, as The Catcher in the Rye. It is a novel about inarticulateness and confusion that could not itself be more direct and sure." - New York Times Book Review, 12/15/1996.[6]
- "In sentence upon sentence of finely honed prose, Scottish-born Andrew Cowan meticulously creates a richly textured, thickly detailed portrait of a sensitive young man trying to salvage something of value from the fragments of a shattered world....'Pig' portrays the poignancy of its situation in loving, painstaking detail." - Los Angeles Times Book Review, 12/22/1996.[7]
Notes and References
- https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/andrew-cowan Professor Andrew Cowan - Literature
- https://portal.uea.ac.uk/documents/6207125/8414176/ACO+listing+v.0.5.pdf/cf21d313-3734-6556-1bba-a2d0b95ebe75 andrew cowan - The UEA Portal
- https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/aug/10/featuresreviews.guardianreview16 Andrew Cowan's success story | Books | The Guardian
- https://annesophieatuea.wordpress.com/2015/03/06/andrew-cowans-lecture-on-pig/ Andrew Cowan’s Lecture on ‘Pig’ | Anne-Sophie at UEA
- https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/andrew-cowan/pig/ PIG by Andrew Cowan | Kirkus Reviews
- https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/01/04/nnp/20539.html Pig - The New York Times
- https://livre.fnac.com/mp8897487/Pig Pig Andrew Cowan - poche - Andrew Cowan - Achat Livre | fnac