Books published by Faber & Faber

David Riggs evokes the atmosphere and texture of Marlowe's life, from the stench and poverty of a childhood spent near Canterbury's abattoirs to the fanatical pursuit of classical learning at school. Marlowe won a place at Cambridge University, where he entered its world of 18-hour working days, religious intrigue and twilight homosexuality, tolerated but unspoken. The gifted student was not immune to the passions and fears of the wider society, and Riggs describes the mood of England in those years when Elizabeth's crown was anything but secure, and Spain and the Papacy were determined to overthrow her regime. Looming above everything is the Elizabethan state and its spy rings, with which Marlowe was already involved by the time he left Cambridge. His undercover missions brought him into contact with Catholic conspirators who were plotting to kill the Queen; yet as a playwright and thinker he was attracted to the most unorthodox and threatening idea of all - atheism. Marlowe's brief life was enigmatic, contradictory and glorious - and this magisterial work of reconstruction and scholarship illuminates it with immense richness.

Griefwork, James Hamilton-Paterson's third novel, was first published in 1993.'This book had its genesis in a vivid dream about a Holland-like landscape of dykes which caused me to catch the next plane to Amsterdam. The story is set in the tropical palm house of a botanical garden - possibly in the Netherlands - just after the Second World War. Its single-minded and distinctly odd curator, Leon, has brought his precious ark of exotic plants safely through the war but is now struggling amid the snows of winter to keep its boilers going in fuel-starved Europe.' James Hamilton-Paterson'Beautifully written. The author explores the tangled roots of his subject with brains and imagination, sustaining a tautness between Leon's affirmation of nature and the creeping truth that will expose its provisionality.' Observer'Hamilton-Paterson's strange and compelling novel puts down enduring roots in the reader's mind.' Sunday Times

In 1986 the overthrow of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos by Cory Aquino's 'People Power' revolution focused global attention on the Philippines. Western media took their lead from the US, and the untrammelled denigration of the fleeing dictator and his wife served to tarnish the Philippines more generally. James Hamilton-Paterson, who knew the Philippines well having lived there for some years, resolved in America's Boy (1998) to examine the Marcoses more closely - not to exonerate them but, rather, to explain the political and social roots of their regime, sustained for so long by support from Washington.'The ultimate book about the national character of the Philippines... both a history and a psychoanalysis of a whole people, a socio-political tour de force.' Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, Malaya'Every page displays Hamilton-Paterson's mastery of his material... required reading for anyone interested in the enduring impact of U.S. policy in the Philippines.' Publishers Weekly

'James Hamilton-Paterson's excoriating book would be unbearably painful were it not so beautifully written. The clarity of his vision and the lucid elegance of his prose - lightened by flashes of gallows humour - make this one of the most extraordinary and powerful novels I have read for years.' Literary ReviewGhosts of Manila (first published in 1994) begins in a wasteland near Manila Airport where a small family business works at boiling down the cadavers of police death squad victims and re-assembling them as skeletons for sale to medical students. The novel's urban drama then opens out to bring in burned-out British journalist John Prideaux, archaeologist and diplomat's daughter Ysabella Bastiaan streetwise but rueful policeman Rio Dingca, and Epifania Tigos, who struggles to run a sewing co-operative from within a shantytown. 'It is the author's remarkable achievement that the city, in all its ragged splendour, continues to haunt the mind even after the last page of the book is finished.' Sunday Telegraph

First published in 1960, A Signal Victory was David Stacton's eighth novel, and the first in what he envisaged as an 'American Triptych.' In this opening panel Stacton paints a vivid picture of the impact of two great civilisations upon each other.Guerrero was a Spanish soldier, shipwrecked on the shores of Yucatan. Years later the Spaniards came as conquerors - but by this time Guerrero was a prince, had married a king's daughter, and would be a spearhead of resistance to the white-skinned invaders from the west. A Signal Victory is Guerrero's story - that of a man who found where his true loyalties lay, and pursued them to their inevitable end.'A strange, outlandish, fearsomely intelligent novel: it has absorbed into its texture some of the hieratic society which it depicts with such brilliance.' Telegraph

From 1955-65 the historian Eric Hobsbawm took the pseudonym 'Francis Newton' and wrote a monthly column for the New Statesman on jazz - music he had loved ever since discovering it as a boy in 1933 ('the year Adolf Hitler took power in Germany'). Hobsbawm's column led to his writing a critical history, The Jazz Scene (1959). This enhanced edition from 1993 adds later writings by Hobsbawm in which he meditates further 'on why jazz is not only a marvellous noise but a central concern for anyone concerned with twentieth-century society and the twentieth-century arts.' 'All the greats are covered in passing (Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday), while further space is given to Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, Thelonious Monk, Mahalia Jackson, and Sidney Bechet ... Perhaps Hobsbawm's tastiest comments are about the business side and work ethics, where his historian's eye strips the jazz scene down to its commercial spine.' Kirkus Reviews

And what does sorry mean? Nothing really. It's just a word. It's what people say when it's too late. It's a sorry little stick of a word. Slick with your spit at my feet.Secluded, isolated, the perfect desert-island escape. Just what Robert and the family need. But beyond the white sand and beautiful sunsets, a storm is gathering.A thriller that explores the cost of integrity, Hotel by Polly Stenham premiered at the National Theatre, London, in June 2014.

Paris in the spring of 1968. The city is beginning to emerge from hibernation and an obscure spirit of social and political renewal is in the air. Yet Theo, his twin sister Isabelle and Matthew, an American student they have befriended, think only of immersing themselves in another, addictive form of hibernation: moviegoing at the Cinematheque Francaise. Night after night, they take their place beside their fellow cinephiles in the very front row of the stalls and feast insatiably off the images that flicker across the vast white screen.Denied their nightly 'fix' when the French government suddenly orders the Cinematheque's closure, Theo, Isabelle and Matthew gradually withdraw into a hermetically sealed universe of their own creation, an airless universe of obsessive private games, ordeals, humiliations and sexual jousting which finds them shedding their clothes and their inhibitions with equal abandon. A vertiginous free fall interrupted only, and tragically, when the real world outside their shuttered apartment succeeds at last in encroaching on their delirium.The study of a triangular relationship whose perverse eroticism contrives nevertheless to conserve its own bruised purity, brilliant in its narrative invention and startling in its imagery, The Dreamers (now a major film by Bernardo Bertolucci) belongs to the romantic French tradition of Les Enfants Terribles and Le Grand Meaulnes and resembles no other work in recent British fiction.

London 1946. An actress is murdered, not just on camera but in full view of a crowded film set. Only six people had an opportunity to administer the poison yet not one of them had a conceivable motive. As Evadne Mount, bestselling crime novelist, discovers, however, all six did have a motive for committing another, earlier, still unsolved murder yet, on that occasion, not one of them had the opportunity . . .

Hate skews reality even more than love.In the story of a Pakistani woman who has begun a new life in Paris, an essay about the writing of Kureishi's acclaimed film Le Week-End, and an account of Kafka's relationship with his father, readers will find Kureishi also exploring the topics that he continues to make new, and make his own: growing up and growing old; betrayal and loyalty; imagination and repression; marriage and fatherhood. The collection ends with a bravura piece of very personal reportage about the conman who stole Kureishi's life savings - a man who provoked both admiration and disgust, obsession and revulsion, love and hate.

Hanif Kureishi's cinematic storytelling embraces a wide spectrum of characters from all classes and nationalities, depicting them with compassion, humour and relish, though never fighting shy of controversy. This volume comprises four of Kureishi's screenplays.My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)Omar is a restless young Asian man, caring for his alcoholic father in the hustling London of the mid-1980s. His uncle, a keen Thatcherite, offers Omar an entrepreneurial opportunity to revamp a dingy laundrette, and ambitious Omar rolls up his sleeves, enlisting the assistance of his old school-friend Johnny, who has since fallen in with a gang of neo-fascists. Omar and Johnny soon form an unlikely alliance that leads to business success, as well as other, more intimate surprises.Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987)1980s London, and Sammy and Rosie share an 'open' marriage, strings of lovers, and a bohemian existence amidst inner-city turmoil. Sammy's father, Rafi, formerly a government minister in India, visits London as racial tensions rise with the death of a woman in a police raid. Rafi offers Sammy financial assistance if the couple will leave their 'war zone' behind them and produce grandchildren. But Rafi's own shady past threatens to haunt him.London Kills Me (1991)A weekend in the lives of homeless Clint and his pal Muffdiver, youthful veterans of the streets of London, whose chief source of income derives from selling drugs to the wealthier denizens of Notting Hill. But what Clint wants more than anything else is a proper job, and he's been promised a position as a waiter in a restaurant - on the condition that he can come up with a pair of 'sensible' shoes.My Son the Fanatic (1997)Parvez is a Pakistani cab driver in a northern industrial town who chauffeurs young prostitute Bettina. Their gentle friendship grows more tender as Parvez's home life starts to crumble, his son Farid embracing a fundamentalist sect of Islam and rejecting his father's values. When Farid then involves himself with a group committed to purging the town of corruption, Parvez is compelled to choose where his loyalties lie.

'Kureishi's screenplay is one of his most focused and engaging since My Beautiful Laundrette.' Allan Hunter, Screen InternationalAt sixty-five years of age, May fears that life has passed her by - that she has become just another invisible old lady whose days are more or less numbered. When she and her husband travel down from the north to visit their grown-up children in west London, she finds them characteristically inattentive. But then her husband's unexpected death pulls the ground from under her, and she subsequently embarks on a passionate affair with Darren, a man half her age, who is renovating her son's house and sleeping with her daughter, Paula. In the midst of this tumultuous situation, May begins to understand that it can take a lifetime to feel truly alive.

'Hanif Kureishi's literary memoir explores his relationship with his father, a failed writer. Kurieshi is, of course, hugely successful...' Esquire'This is an ambitious book. Kureshi - free-associating with what feels like unmitigated honesty - successfully conveys the impression that in this book he has actually given us himself.' Sunday Times'Deeply involving, highly intelligent and, in what it doesn't say rather than what it does, profoundly sad.' Evening Standard'I don't think he has done anything as good, in any medium, as this moving and fiercely honest book.' Guardian

This Dog, our girl, they're not expecting her to win. We'll never have that secret weapon again so just enjoy it. The minute she crosses that line first, it'll be like the whole world has changed for us... you might want to think about that a little before it happens.On the evening of their first race, five men await the arrival of a dog that they hope will change their fortunes. But before they've even left for the track, a violent situation erupts and now the night of their dreams, along with the fate of an innocent man, hangs in the balance.A Night at the Dogs, winner of the Verity Bargate Award 2004, premiered at the Soho Theatre, London, in April 2005.

It's the beginning of World War I and Herbert Samuel - the first practicing Jew ever to sit in a British Cabinet - dreams of using British power to back a return of the Jews to Palestine after 1800 years. However, his cousin, Edwin Montagu - also in the Cabinet - is implacably opposed to the idea, a conflict complicated by Montagu's passion for the beautiful aristocrat, Venetia Stanley, a confidante of the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith.Politics, religion and love collide with world-changing effect in this new play of political and sexual intrigue, and the origins of Israel.The Promise premiered at the Orange Tree Theatre in February 2010.

On Raftery's Hill'This is a play that howls to be seen; its courage is matched only by its dramatic power.' Sunday IndependentAriel'An astonishing piece of theatre. Interweaving themes drawn from Irish, Greek and biblical myth, she spins a tale of power that is honest, emotional, dark and true . . . Die to see it.' Irish ExaminerWoman and Scarecrow'Drama doesn't come much richer or stranger than this death-bed lament. Ravishing in its dense, literary language, it is as visceral as it is intellectual. It lingers not only in the ear and brain, but in the imagination and the gut. An extraordinary brew, bittersweet and totally intoxicating.' The TimesThe Cordelia Dream'A brave piece and clearly charged with deep feeling. . . This is certainly unsettling territory and Carr boldly goes for it.' Financial TimesMarble'An extraordinary play that lures us in with a promise of the recognisable only to drag us screaming into the soaring, magnificent possibilities of love and the destruction that it wreaks.' Irish Independent

For the teenagers of the small Ayrshire town of Stewarton, there's change in the air. Rab's back from Cambridge. He feels alienated there; he feels alienated in his home town, too. Michelle's returned to spend some time with her great-gran while she can. She reckons university isn't all it's cracked up to be, too. Meanwhile, Norma's sweeping up in the local hairdresser's until she works out what to do. Two years is a long time in a teenager's life.The second play in the trilogy which includes The Wall and The Chooky Brae, D. C. Jackson's The Ducky premiered in a Borderline Theatre Company production at the Palace Theatre, Kilmarnock, in May 2009.

Furious that Prince Hippolytus will not worship her, Aphrodite, goddess of love, seeks revenge. Infecting Hippolytus' stepmother, Phaedra, with an overpowering desire for him, Aphrodite's retribution will sweep both prince and queen to a brutal end.A secret tormentStorms through herTosses her into that black harbourDeath.Timberlake Wertenbaker's translation of Euripides' tragedy Hippolytus premiered at Riverside Studios, London, in February, 2009 in a production by Temple Theatre.

Love is just fear I suppose. Masquerading as a fever. Then you explore each other and suddenly you have licence to become totally pedestrian. And ultimately abusive.Militancy in the Suffragette Movement is at its height. Thousands of women of all classes serve time in Holloway Prison in their fight to gain the vote. Amongst them is Lady Celia Cain who feels trapped by both the policies of the day and the shackles of a frustrating marriage. Inside, she meets a young seamstress, Eve Douglas, and her life spirals into an erotic but dangerous chaos.London 1913. A crucial moment when, with emancipation almost in sight, women refuse to let the establishment stand in their way. Rebecca Lenkiewicz's Her Naked Skin premiered at the National Theatre, London, in July 2008.

See, love between a man and a woman, it's - private. It happens where you never do see it. In rooms.Italy 1 - Ireland 0...The score that marked Ireland's demoralizing exit from Italia '90 took its toll. No more so than for Janet and Joe Brady of Parnell Street who lost far more than the match that night. Some years on, Joe and Janet reveal the intimacies of their love and the rupture of their marriage, through interconnecting monologues that also evoke their life-long love affair with Dublin city itself. Sebastian Barry's explores with vivid tenderness the devastating effects of public and private acts of violence. This is an intimate, heroic tale of ordinary and extraordinary life on the streets of Dublin. Fishamble's world premiere of The Pride of Parnell Street opened at the Tricycle Theatre, London, and as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival at the Tivoli Theatre, Dublin, in September 2007.

I can't take care of you anymore. I can't take it. It's like an endless boxing match.Mia is at boarding school. She has access to drugs. They are Martha's. Henry is preparing for art college. He has access to alcohol. From Martha. Martha controls their lives. Martha is their mother.That Face premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in April 2007, and won the TMA Award 2007 for Best New Play. Polly Stenham received both the Charles Wintour Award 2007 and the Critics' Circle Award 2008 for Most Promising Playwright.

In the small Ayrshire town of Stewarton, the school holidays are like a microwave. So much happens and it all happens so fast. Norma Gordon has got a problem. She's going to be in big trouble if her dad finds out. Norma needs to find Rab McGuire fast. Her big brother Barry's no use. He's in love for the first time. Michelle Montgomery loves Barry too but her mum and Aunt Alice just won't let them be together. This summer everything's changing in Stewarton. The Wall premiered at Tron Theatre, Glasgow, in February 2008, in association with Borderline Theatre Company. It is the first part of a trilogy that includes The Ducky and The Chooky Brae.

I want you to do yourself proud, Joey. You go and drive those Germans back where they've come from, and then come home to me. At the outbreak of World War one, Joey, young Albert's beloved horse, is sold to the cavalry and shipped to France. Caught up in enemy fire, fate takes Joey on an extraordinary odyssey, serving on both sides before finding himself alone in no man's land. But Albert cannot forget Joey and, still not old enough to enlist, he embarks on a treacherous mission to find him and bring him home. Nick Stafford's adaptation for the stage of the celebrated novel by the Children's Laureate (2003-05) Michael Morpurgo leads us on a gripping journey through history. War Horse premiered at the National Theatre, London, in October 2007.

Yellow Moon is a modern Bonnie and Clyde tale that follows the fortunes of two teenagers on the run. Silent Leila is an introverted girl who has a passion for celebrity magazines. Stag Lee Macalinden is the deadest of dead-end kids in a dead-end town. They never meant to get mixed up in a murder... but now they need a place to hide.Yellow Moon explores what it means to live in a celebrity-obsessed world and what it is that defines who you are when you're 17 years old. The play premiered at the Circle Studio of Citizens' Theatre, Glasgow, in September 2006, and won the 2008 Brain Way Award for Best Play for Young People.

We are where we come from?' That's not true. That's not true because if that's true there's no hope for any of us.Lori is coming home from her first term at university. It's only been a few weeks and already things have gone badly wrong. But none of the rest of the family knows, or understands, what really happened.In this fiercely observed family drama, three teenage girls struggle to define who they are, and why, and where they might be going.Leaves won the George Devine Award 2006, the premier award for new writing by an emerging playwright in the UK and Ireland. The play opened at the Druid Theatre, Galway in March 2007 before transferring to the Royal Court Theatre, London.

In the oppressive heat of Midsummer's Eve, Julie, daughter of the lord, is drawn into a dangerous tryst with her father's butler. As the night wears on, the couple, from opposite ends of the social spectrum, dance, flirt and fight towards an explosive conclusion that will shake the existing order to its core. Zinnie Harris's new version of Strindberg's nineteenth-century masterpiece, Miss Julie, relocates the play to central Scotland between the wars.The play premiered at Platform, Easterhouse, in a National Theatre of Scotland Ensemble production in September 2006.

A woman - gaunt and ill, haggard after giving birth eight times - faces death. What was life? What was love? What else could have been? Full of mordant, bitter humour, this is a passionate threnody from one of Ireland's leading playwrights.Woman and Scarecrow premieres at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in June 2006.

Fifteen years ago Una and Ray had a relationship.They haven't set eyes on each other since.Now, years later, she's found him again.Blackbird premiered at King's Theatre as part of the Edinburgh International Festival, in August 2005, and transferred to the Albery Theatre in London's West End in 2006. The production received the 2007 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play. In 2007, the play opened simultaneously at the Manhattan Theater Club in New York and and at American Conservatory Theatre, San Francisco.

Finished just two months before the author's murder on 18 August 1936 by a gang of Franco's supporters, The House of Bernarda Alba is now accepted as Lorca's great masterpiece of love and loathing.Five daughters live together in a single household with a tyrannical mother. When the father of all but the eldest girl dies, a cynical marriage is advanced which will have tragic consequences for the whole family. Lorca's fascinatingly modern play, rendered here in an English version by David Hare, speaks as powerfully as a political metaphor of oppression as it does as domestic drama. The House of Bernarda Alba premiered at the National Theatre, London, in March 2005.

A man is found lying in the snow at the foot of the Pyrenees. He remembers nothing. He believes he is British. A young woman from the British Consulate is dispatched to confirm his nationality and to try to piece together his identity. When Vivienne, a middle aged woman from Edinburgh arrives, she presents him with a history he doesn't recognise. Is he really who she says he is? As the snow melts on the mountains the man must decide which reality he will enter - Anna's or Vivienne's? Who is he really?Pyrenees premiered at the Tron Theatre, Glasgow in March 2005 in a co-production between Paines Plough and the Tron Theatre Company, Glasgow, in association with Palace Theatre, Watford.