Spend an evening with Costa prize winning writer Hannah Lowe and hear her in conversation ahead of the publication of her two latest works, Old Friends and Rock, Bird, Butterfly!

A faded memory of an East End Chinese restaurant galvanises Hannah Lowe’s exploration of Limehouse, the site of London’s first Chinatown – a place far larger in the public imagination than the few streets that once homed foreign seamen. The poems in this chapbook ask what can be found between census figures and sensationalist portrayals, between Brilliant Chang and Fu Manchu, and how do these flickers of the past speak to present perceptions of China, a place continually imagined and re-imagined in Britain’s public consciousness?

Continuing Hannah's exploration of the Chinese diaspora in Europe, Old Friends is being published simultaneously with Rock, Bird, Butterfly, a collection on the theme of Chinese wallpaper. A fire unpeels the walls of a stately home to reveal stunning hand-painted Chinese wallpaper, a ‘luxury good’ of the empire. Here begins Hannah’s search to understand what this wallpaper, which still graces many of this country’s great houses, can tell us about Britain’s historical trade with China, the fashion for chinoiserie, and the little-known painting workshops in which the wallpaper was meticulously produced.

ABOUT HANNAH LOWE:

Hannah Lowe is a poet, memoirist and academic. Her book, The Kids, a Poetry Book Society ‘Choice’ for Autumn, won the Costa Poetry Award and the Costa Book of the Year, 2021.

Her first poetry collection Chick (Bloodaxe, 2013) won the Michael Murphy Memorial Award for Best First Collection. In September 2014, she was named as one of 20 Next Generation poets. Her family memoir Long Time, No See (Periscope, 2015) featured as Radio 4’s Book of the Week. Her second collection, Chan, is published by Bloodaxe. (2016). She has also published four chapbooks: The Hitcher (Rialto 2012); R x (sine wave peak 2013); and Ormonde (Hercules Editions 2014) and The Neighbourhood (Outspoken Press, 2019)

Hannah undertook her AHRC-funded PhD in Creative Writing at Newcastle University, and now lectures in Creative Writing at Brunel University.

https://hannahlowe.me/about/