Liars' League has been invited to partner with the highly prestigious Willesden Herald International Short Story Competition: our lovely actors will be reading extracts from some of the stories on Thursday 7th April at Willesden Library. With Andrea Ashworth among the shortlisted authors and Maggie Gee adjudicating, it's going to be a night of sheer literary quality!
the full text of this story may be found here at Granta where Bilal is featured as one of their New Voices
After That, We Are Ignorant by Bilal Tanweer was read by Rhik Samadder at the Liars' League Fact & Fiction event on Tuesday 8 March 2011 at the Phoenix, Cavendish Sq., London
*From The Author*
After That, We Are Ignorant is set on a bus in Karachi, Pakistan. It is the first of a collection of interconnected stories that are linked by the event which occurs at the end of the story.
Bilal Tanweeris a writer and translator. He has an MFA in Writing (fiction) from Columbia University for which he received the Fulbright Scholarship. He was one of the eleven recipients of the 2010 PEN Translation Fund Grant for his forthcoming book of translation and was selected as one of Granta’s New Voices in January 2011. He is working on a novel.
Rhik Samadder's first job was the title role in The Indian Boy (Royal Shakespeare Company). Recent credits include Romeo in Romeo and Juliet Unzipped (Salisbury Playhouse). Film work includes Chemical Wedding (Warner Bros, Cannes '08), and radio includes Urban Scrawl for Theatre 503. Rhik is also a writer and works at the Guardian.
Chris pulled the semi-automatic weapon from its holster and thrust it into the terrorist’s face. The eyes that looked back at him were full of hate. Bloodthirsty, terrorist hate. He tightened his finger on the trigger. Above his head he could hear the whirr of the helicopter, with its cargo of reinforcements. But there was no time for that now. There was only time for action. He pressed the muzzle of the weapon against the terrorist’s forehead.
The risk of falling for an ironworker is part of the job I guess; not totally unexpected. Ironworkers as a rule may fall off the steel at any time and everyone knows the risks and does it anyway. We were like meth junkies getting high off the thrill of staring Death in his cold, bony face. As I hung there, I thought about my life as an ironworker, suspended seven stories over newly hardened pavement, and I waited for someone to rescue me. I felt vulnerable, scared, and alone.
Perhaps only those of you who are fortunate enough to be Hungarian will know him. Perhaps, even, only those of you who have seen the black chimneys of Eöstvöt and breathed the city’s bitter air. Perhaps only those who have visited the terraced grey-brick house on Mogyoró Street in which Brno-Hálavyí was born and died.
Even someone who was not an aficionado of the hobby could see that the model railway had been beautifully constructed. It depicted a small marshalling yard, somewhere out in a bleak countryside, set into a low depression between banks of grass, fringed with hedgerow trees and separated from all that lay beyond by a barbed wire fence. Four sidings fanned out from a loop of track off a single-track line. There were no buildings, save for the representation of a single box-like structure of the terrapin type, beside which the neat model of a British Rail van stood parked. Gidley had cleverly damaged the nearside wheel arch of this, which he had then painted in a dull rusty colour.
“Such a hot afternoon,” Baochi said, “Are you sure you want to die?” Although she was a lazy assassin, Baochi had outlived the fool and the plagiarist by several centuries, insisting a daily bowl of raw beetroot Borscht was the cause of her ungodly longevity, (however, it must be noted that over time a good many who hankered after immortality had tried to emulate Baochi and subsist on borscht alone, but these aspirants merely suffered years of indigestion, pink-stained teeth and ruby-coloured urine, before a younger than average Death spared them from swallowing down any further bowls of Borscht).
Basil, the man with aching ankles, sighed and his sigh was fat like a leopard’s purr. “I’m so tired of my ankles aching,” he said, to which Baochi replied: “And I so weary from the heat.” She cooled herself with what appeared to be a giant fan, but closer inspection revealed the slats were blades, twenty of them, capable of simultaneous shredding; it was no fan then, rather a score of icosi-bladed scissors.
Thanks to our faithful fans' nominations we were shortlisted (along with four other eminent & excellent events) in the Best Regular Spoken Word Night category at the Saboteur Awards 2020! We didn't win (though congrats to poetry night Punk in Drublic, who did) but we certainly basked in the glory ...
INTERVIEW ON THE STATE OF THE ARTS
In celebration of our one hundredth event, the fine folks over at thestateofthearts.co.uk interviewed us about the secret of Liars' League's longevity, here.
BEST REGULAR SPOKEN WORD NIGHT AT SABOTEUR AWARDS
We got nominated, we canvassed, we voted, we hoped, we prayed. Then we went down to Oxford - along with our publishing partners Arachne Press - for the Saboteur Awards and came away with a gong each! We won Best Regular Spoken Word Night 2014 and Weird Lies won Best Anthology.
LL IN GUARDIAN TOP TEN
Liars' League is one of The Guardian's 10 Great Storytelling Nights, according to the paper's go-out-and-have-fun Do Something supplement, that is. And they should know. The article is here and mentions several other live lit events well worth checking out.
ARTICLE ABOUT US IN WORDSWITHJAM
Journalist Catriona Troth came along to our Twist & Turn night, reviewed it and interviewed Katy, Liam, Cliff and author/actor Carrie. See what she said in her article for WordsWithJam here.
BUY OUR AUTHORS' BOOKS!
Longtime contributors Niall Boyce, Jonathan Pinnock & Richard Smyth all have books out which you'd be well advised to buy, then read, then buy for others. All genres are catered for, from novels (Niall's Veronica Britton) and short stories (Jonathan's Dot Dash) to nonfiction (Richard's Bumfodder)
KATY LIAR'S DEBUT NOVEL
Liar Katy Darby's debut novel, a Victorian drama called The Unpierced Heart (previously titled The Whores' Asylum) is now out in Penguin paperback. It's had nice reviews in The Independent on Sunday, Sunday Times & Metro (4*).
OUR INTERVIEW WITH ANNEXE MAG!
They came, they saw, they asked us a bunch of interesting questions. Interview by Nick of Annexe Magazine with Katy of LL: here
Flambard Press Publishers of Courttia Newland's short story collection "A Book of Blues", from which we read Gone Away Boy in April 2011.
Granta A great magazine full of new writing by established and up-and-coming authors.
Literary Death Match Watch blood spill and saliva fly, as writers fight for the LDM crown by reading their work and performing ridiculous tasks.
Sabotage Reviews An excellent review site which highlights the best of indie literature - poetry, prose and spoken word. They gave us an award, doncherknow?
ShortStops A fantastically useful site run by author Tania Hershman which lists opportunities for short story writers, from magazines to prizes to live events.