Minx
Karen Downs-Barton
We send all orders via Royal Mail: within the UK, choose from 1st Class, 2nd Class or Special Delivery; for the rest of the world, International Standard or International Tracked. Delivery and packaging charges are calculated automatically at the checkout.
To collect orders in person from the Bookshop, choose Click and Collect at the checkout.
From the publisher
Heart-breaking yet uplifting, this unforgettable portrait of an Anglo-Romani childhood on the edge of society, in and out of the perils of state care, marks the arrival of a vital new voice in British poetry
‘Like amber, these poems capture moments of time, place and feeling' Lemn Sissay, author of My Name is Why
'Fiercely imaginative and wonderfully unexpected' Ruth Padel, author of Girl
'Don’t worry, I’m here in the house where every room has a name, but children’s names are often forgotten.'
Uplifting and heart-breaking, this lyrical evocation of a childhood on the edge of society marks the arrival of a vital new voice.
MINX reveals the vibrant but precarious world of a multi-racial Romani family: a world of grandfathers brewing moonshine in marrows, basement reggae parties, and a mother struggling to support her two daughters on the proceeds of her shadowy profession. Their powerful bond helps the sisters survive when they’re taken into care, in a children’s home that forcibly separates them.
With a verve and playfulness that belies their pain, these poems explore what it means to belong. Through daring experiments with form and narrative, MINX captures how it feels to grow up between a culture whose traditional ways are being lost and a wider society that despises them.