Big Girl: A BBC Radio Two Book Club Pick. 'Absolutely incredible'

A BBC RADIO 2 BOOKCLUB PICK

 

SHORTLISTED FOR THE CENTRE FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE, THE GOTHAM BOOK PRIZE AND THE LAMBDA AWARD

 

 

*'Absolutely incredible. Beautiful, powerful writing. These pages will stay with me forever' CANDICE CARTY-WILLIAMS, author of QUEENIE

 

*'A gift as big, beautiful and complicated as living itself' Jacqueline Woodson, author of RED AT THE BONE

 

*'Hilariously funny and quietly devastating' Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of PATSY and HERE COMES THE SUN

 

*'There are three books on earth that I would give anything to be able to write and reread until the suns burns us up. Big Girl is one of those books' Kiese Laymon, author of HEAVY

 

 

Growing up in rapidly gentrifying 90s Harlem, Malaya struggles to fit into a world that makes no room for her. She's funny, creative and smart, but all people see - even those who love her - is her size. At eight, she is forced to go to Weight Watchers; at twelve, her parents fear she'll be taken from them; by sixteen, a gastric bypass is discussed.

 

 

But tensions at home are mounting as rapidly as Malaya's weight, and soon a family tragedy forces her to finally face the source of her hunger on her own terms...

 

 

 

An extraordinary debut novel shot through with remarkable nuance and tenderness, Big Girl is the unforgettable portrait of a queer Black girl as she learns to take up space in the world.

Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, PhD is the author of The Poetics of Difference: Queer Feminist Forms in the African Diaspora, winner of the Modern Language Association William Sanders Scarborough Prize, and the short-story collection, Blue Talk and Love, winner of the Judith A. Markowitz Award for Fiction from Lambda Literary. She is Associate Professor of English at Georgetown University. A native of Harlem, she currently lives in Washington, DC.