Cable Street, ready to roll

We put in the final corrections to the last of our five Cable Street books tomorrow... two are back from the printers, two are in press, the promo leaflet is ready to print, the demo is on and the seven page colour programme featuring ALL the events can be downloaded from: http://www.battleofcablestreet.org.uk/anniversary.html. If you are coming to any of the events around the launch of our books - the launch itself, the lunchtime gig and the evening event with Billy Bragg, Michael Rosen and Shappi Khorsandi let us know as it will be rather busy on the day. Our books can now be ordered from www.fiveleaves.co.uk but very soon we'll post a special offer, 20% off for mail order paid with by old-fashioned cheques (that way we can avoid paying the credit card companies). The nice picture of a previous event is by Dan Jones.

Jewish Book Week 2011

No sessions on Five Leaves' books at this year's Jewish Book Week. Mustn't grumble. But there is a short film by Richard Zimler, The Slow Mirror, based on the title story by him in our collection The Slow Mirror and other stories: new fiction by Jewish writers. Here's a trailer for the film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOCCob62WzE&feature=related. The Slow Mirror is still available through our website.

Several of the contributors to our more recently anthology of short fiction by (mostly) Jewish writers, The Sea of Azov, appear in their own right - Nicole Krauss from America, Eskhol Nevo from Israel and Tania Hershman from Bristol, while Shaun Levin (who was in The Slow Mirror as well as being the author of our A Year of Two Summers) runs a writing workshop. Similarly Joanne Limburg and Ruth Fainlight, from our Passionate Renewal book of Jewish poets are appearing - Ruth reading from her "New and Selected" from Bloodaxe, Joanne is taking part in a Bookniks salon. Michael Rosen, also in Passionate Renewal and author of several Five Leaves' books appears with John Hegley and Jackie Kay, who we have anthologised a few times.

The full programme appears at http://www.jewishbookweek.com/

Cold war

Andy Croft and Paul Summers have just returned from Moscow, giving readings, freezing (welcome back to sunnier climes!) and trying to find a Russian publisher for our Three Men on the Metro, the Russian metro that is. There are good signs and some Russians have already started translating the work. Prior to that Andy has also been reading from his assorted books in America. Meanwhile, also in America, sections of Michael Rosen and Baruch Simons' The Golem of Old Prague are included in Monsters and Miracles; a journey through Jewish picture books, a major exhibition at the Eric Carle Museum in Amhurst, see http://www.carlemuseum.org/Home.

Zeynep's story

The four people reading Where the Wild Things Are comprise Zeynep, Fatih and Kebire Hasbudak and Brian Simons. The year is 1985 and the picture is from Zeynep: that really happened to me, published by the All London Teachers against Racism and Fascism (those were the days). The book is a collection of drawings and photographs and the autobiographical story of Zeynep who, the next year was deported with her family to a country she had never seen before where her parents became unemployed and she had to learn a new language. Her whole school tried to stop the deportation but failed. The book was really important in her home area of Hackney and beyond in showing the child's view of being deported, a child in this case that was born and lived for ten years in London. I lost my copy of the book years ago and bought another for £1 in the second hand section at Housmans last week.
25 years on Zeynep and Fatih both live in Britain again; Brian is now Boruch and has changed his jeans and sweater for Chassidic garb. We've just brought out a new edition of The Golem of Old Prague, illustrated by Boruch and written by Michael Rosen, one of those thanked in Zeynep's book.
The Home Office minister responsible for deporting Zeynep and her family was David Waddington, later Governor of Bermuda, and last seen on the political stage inserting a supposedly free speech clause in the section of the Public Order Act outlawing acts of homophobic hatred. He has been a member of the Conservative Party since he was at Oxford University.