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Award-winning poet and rapper Kate Tempest’s electrifying debut novel takes us into the beating heart of London in this multi-generational tale of drugs, desire, and belonging. The Bricks That Built the Houses explores a cross-section of contemporary urban life with a powerful moral microscope, giving us intimate stories of ordinary lives, and questions how we live with and love one another. Heralded by critics and fans alike for her powerful performances, Tempest takes the ALOUD stage to present her dynamic new work.
Kate Tempest grew up in southeast London, where she still lives. She has gained acclaim as a poet, playwright, rapper, and recording artist. Her long poem Brand New Ancients, conceived as a performance piece, won the Ted Hughes Award for Poetry in 2013. In 2014, her album Everybody Down was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize, and she was selected as one of this decade’s Next Generation Poets by the Poetry Book Society. She is also the author of the collection Hold Your Own. This is her first novel.
Neelanjana Banerjee is the Managing Editor of Kaya Press, a small publishing house dedicated to innovative Asian diasporic literature. She is co-editor of Indivisible: An Anthology of Contemporary South Asian American Poetry (the University of Arkansas Press) and The Coiled Serpent: Poets Arising from the Cultural Quakes and Shifts of Los Angeles (Tia Chucha Press). She teaches fiction with Writing Workshops Los Angeles and is a contributing editor to the Los Angeles Review of Books.
