Catherine Banner's Blog, page 5

Goodbye Turin... hello NY!

This blog post is a few days early, because this week is a bit different to usual: I'm going to New York. I set off this evening, and about 26 hours later, after a coach ride, a night in Milan airport, a plane, a train and another bus, I arrive in NY.

This will be the first time I visit America, something I've wanted to do since I first read a Judy Blume novel aged about 9. And it will also be the first time that I meet many of the people at my American publisher who have worked with me on Th...

Some thoughts on language learning, and 5 great Italian phrases which don't exist in English

Recently, an odd thing happened which made me think about the complexities of learning a foreign language. I was writing a scene, and I wanted to use the wordsfondare,meaning to break through something in a particular way, for instance dropping a heavy anchor through ice or breaking a bucket by filling it with too much water. The problem was, the word was in the wrong language. And when I thought about it, I couldn't find an English equivalent. In the end I went back, filled the gap with '[to...

Five of my favourite bookshops in Torino

Last week I wrote about how I’ve been looking forward to reading In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri. This week, the task was to find a copy. The book has only just been released in the UK and US, so the whole process turned into a bit of an adventure, and along the way I got the chance to explore a few of Turin's bookshops. Here are five of them (and one library!).

1. Mondadori I started with the biggest bookshop! Chain bookstores here in Italy are different to those in the UK and USA, beca...

Learning Italian: A Journey in Five Books

This morning I was reading about Jhumpa Lahiri's new non-fiction book In Other Words, which is out this week. I've been looking forward to this book for a long time. It'sa chronicle of Lahiri's experiences of learning to speak and write in Italian, which began with a trip to Italy in 1994 and ended with her moving her whole family to Rome to be able to learn the language well enough to write in it, a personal challenge Lahiri set herself and finally managed to achieve (her book is written in...

The Last Six Months: An Update

This is a very long overdue update. The main reason for this is that I have moved! I am now living in Turin, Italy. Now that I finally have internet access, my desk has come out of storage, and I've finished all the paperwork required to become an Italian resident, I came online to write an update and realised just how much time had passed since my last blog post.So here are some of the other things that have been happening recently:
We finished the editing, copy-editing and proofreading...

Finished copies of The Heart at War

The other day, I had just finished work for the evening when a mysterious box arrived from Penguin Random House. Here's roughly what happened... 'I wonder what's inside this box...' 'Hmm, looks like some kind of book...' 'Oh wait, I recognise this!' My editor hadn't told me that the books were on their way, so it was a wonderful surprise to discover that the box contained the first finished copies of The Heart at War. Here's a closer look: The publication da...

Publication date: The Heart at War

I am very happy to announce that we have a publication date for The Heart at War, the final volume of the Last Descendants trilogy! The book will be published on the 26th May 2015. I will post international publication dates as soon as I have them but for now, to celebrate, here's a first look at the cover... The Last Descendants has been an immense project for me, spanning eight years of work - in many ways it has represented my apprenticeship as a writer, and I doubt I will ever work...

The House at the Edge of Night

With my new editors Kate and Jocasta, and my agent Simon, making plans for the book. I have some exciting news: my debut adult novel, The House at the Edge of Night, will be published worldwide in 2016. I could not be more delighted to share this announcement with you.

Publishers in the UK, USA, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Spain, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Germany have acquired rights so far. A really wonderful team of editors has formed around the book, including Jocasta Hamilton at Hutchinson...

an update, three months overdue...

It's hard to understand how it can be that the last time I posted was in July... This summer, and indeed, most of this autumn, have vanished rather alarmingly. But today I found myself in the strange position, for the first time since January, of having no immediate deadlines ahead. So it seemed the perfect moment to post a quick update and explain where I've been.

In August, I was immersed in the process of finishing my new book. At the end of the month I completed the first draft, and put it...

'One single fact that is true': gabriel garcia marquez

Last week,Icame across this wonderful interview from the Paris Review of Winter 1981, in whichGabriel García Márqueztalksabout his writing. At the time,García Márquez was 54 and he had already become well-known. That fame would only increase with his Nobel Prize win the following year. But what I love about this interview is his concern not with fame or the trappings of his status as a celebrity writer, but the daily struggles of his work as an artist.García Márquezis often given credit for p...