Zero Hours on the Boulevard: Tales of Independence & Belonging

Description

Features
stories from award-winning international writers:
Alys Conran,
Clare Azzopardi,
Albert Forns,
Llyr Gwyn Lewis

‘
What all these tales have in common is a belief in the individual’s story, and in the power of smaller countries to give new perspectives on the world we think we know.’
— Patrick McGuinness

‘A book about friendship, community, identity and tribalism… it glitters with hard-won insights into what it means to be alive here, and now… razor-edged in [its] timeliness.’
—
Alex Diggins,New Welsh Review

Kelinu waits for a birthday card from the Queen of England. He has a few years to go but he’ll wait. His niece thinks he’s a fool. He was in the service of the Queen only a year, all those years ago. Times have changed.

In these stories people strive to make a place, a living, a life with meaning in a new country or sense in an old one: from zero hour contracts in Bridgend and Munich to scraping a living as a mermaid on the streets of Barcelona. A woman tends a beautiful garden she knows will be taken away from her while another sends her child to a school concert dressed as a dinosaur. A man attends yet one more demonstration while another explains to his daughter where he isreallyfrom.

In this diverse and fascinating anthology, writers from across Europe embark on a journey of independence and belonging.