Salena Godden
AUTHOR

Salena Godden

Literature & Fiction
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Salena Godden FRSL is an award-winning author, poet and broadcaster of Jamaican-mixed heritage based in London. In 2021 Canongate published her highly acclaimed debut novel 'Mrs Death Misses Death'. It won The Indie Book Award for fiction and The Peoples Book Prize and was also shortlisted for The British Book Awards and The Gordon Burn Prize. Salena Godden's work has been widely anthologised and broadcast on BBC radio and TV and film. Her essay 'Shade' was published in award-wining anthology 'The Good Immigrant' (Unbound, 2016). She has had several volumes of poetry published including 'Under The Pier' (Nasty Little Press, 2011) 'Fishing in the Aftermath: Poems 1994-2014' (Burning Eye Books, 2014) 'Pessimism is for Lightweights - 13 Pieces of Courage and Resistance' (Rough Trade Books, 2018) and also the childhood memoir 'Springfield Road' (Unbound, 2014). Her self-produced poetry album 'LIVEwire' (Nymphs and Thugs, 2016) was shortlisted for The Ted Hughes Prize. The Royal Society of Literature inducted Godden as a fellow FRSL in 2022. She is also a patron of Hastings Book Festival and an Honorary Fellow of West Dean, Sussex. A new hardback edition of 'Pessimism is for Lightweights - 30 Pieces of Courage and Resistance' was published in February 2023 by Rough Trade Books, featuring revised and new material, an introduction by John Higgs and an Old English translation of the title poem by Emily Cotman. The poem 'Pessimism is for Lightweights' is on permanent display at The Peoples History Museum, Manchester. Salena Godden is currently working on three new books for Canongate: Literary childhood memoir 'Springfield Road - A Poets Childhood Revisited' and full poetry collection 'With Love, Grief and Fury' will be published together in May 2024. Plus an eagerly anticipated 2nd novel set in the 'Mrs Death Misses Death' universe will be published by Canongate in spring 2025.
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  • Mrs Death Misses Death cover art

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