Bermondsey teacher, Niall Bourke, publishes his debut novel, Line, to critical acclaim.
Roddy Doyle says: “Line is an extraordinary novel – gripping, unsettling, brilliant.”
Willard, his mother, and his girlfriend, Nyla, have spent their entire lives in an endless journey where daily survival is dictated by the ultimate imperative: obey the rules, or you will lose your place in The Line. Everything changes the day Willard’s mother dies and he finds an incomprehensible book hidden among her few belongings…
Deeply moving, Line touches on many of the pressing issues of our turbulent world: migration and the refugee crisis, big data and the erosion of democracy, climate change, colonialism, economic exploitation, social conformity and religious fanaticism.
Niall is Head of English at St Michael’s College in Bermondsey and lives in Brockley.
He completed the Teacher/Writer MA at Goldsmiths in 2015. His writing has been published widely in magazines and journals, in both the UK and Ireland, and his poems and short stories have been listed for numerous awards.