Lublin

Elya is the lad with the vision, and Elya has the map. Ziv and Kiva aren't so sure. The water may run out before they find the Village of Lakes. The food may run out before the flaky crescent pastries of Prune Town. They may never reach the Village of Girls (how disappointing); they may well stumble into Russian Town, rumoured to be a dangerous place for Jews (it is).

As three young boys set off from Mezritsh with a case of bristle brushes to sell in the great market town of Lublin, wearing shoes of uneven quality and possessed of decidedly unequal enthusiasms, they quickly find that nothing, not Elya's jokes nor Kiva's prayers nor Ziv's sublime irritatingness, can prepare them for the future as it comes barrelling down to meet them. Absurd, riveting, alarming, hilarious, the dialogue devastatingly sharp and the pacing extraordinary, Lublin is a journey to nowhere that changes everything it touches.

Winner of Wingate Literary Prize 2025

‘Lublin has a truly individual flavour. Beautifully written, well-paced, rhythmical, sad, funny. It was a real pleasure to read it.’ David Almond ---- ‘Wilkinson is a superb comic writer. She’s also gifted in startling poetic compression, turning on a sixpence to move into moments of horror and prophecy. Reading Lublin, you have to laugh; you want to look away from what follows, but you can’t.’ Sean O'Brien ---- ‘Mercurial, hilarious, terrifying, a sustained song to the lost, Lublin is a masterpiece. Prepare to be enchanted.’ Sinéad Morrissey ---- ‘A true boy's own adventure with a deep heart set against a backdrop of ferocious world events, Lublin will charm and devastate readers in equal measure with its compulsive, funny and moving prose. Manya Wilkinson has given us a fable-like story whose characters live and breathe through the ages to speak to us of childhood dreams and the inequities of war today.’ Preti Taneja ---- Praise for Manya Wilkinson’s Ocean Avenue: ‘With a wry wit that recalls Woody Allen, Wilkinson confidently and evocatively blends the historical and personal into a disturbing yet funny tale.’ Publishers Weekly

Manya Wilkinson is a Jewish New Yorker who has lived in the North of England for over twenty years. Formerly a senior MA lecturer on prose and scriptwriting at Newcastle University, she is currently teaching prose workshops for Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts and Mslexia magazine. Her first novel, Ocean Avenue, was published by Serpent's Tail, and her short stories by Comma Press. Her radio dramas have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4, Afternoon Play, Saturday Drama, Writing the Century, and Woman's Hour.

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