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This is London: Life and Death in the World City
Ben Judah
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Description for This is London: Life and Death in the World City
Paperback. Num Pages: 352 pages. BIC Classification: 1DBKESL; WTLC. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 199 x 131 x 29. Weight in Grams: 354.
This is London in the eyes of its beggars, bankers, coppers, gangsters, carers, witch-doctors and sex workers. This is London in the voices of Arabs, Afghans, Nigerians, Poles, Romanians and Russians. This is London as you've never seen it before. Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-fiction 2016 Shortlisted for the Ryszard Kapuscinski Award for Literary Reportage 2019 'An eye-opening investigation into the hidden immigrant life of the city' Sunday Times 'Full of nuggets of unexpected information about the lives of others ... Read more. . . It recalls the journalism of Orwell' Financial Times 'Judah grabs hold of London and shakes out its secrets' The Economist Show Less
Product Details
Place of Publication
London, United Kingdom
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 5 to 9 working days
About Ben Judah
Ben Judah was born in London. He has travelled widely in Russia, Central Asia and the Levant. His writing has featured widely, including the New York Times, the Evening Standard, the Financial Times and Standpoint. In 2016, Ben was chosen as one of Forbes magazine's 30 under 30 in European media. His first book, Fragile Empire, was published by Yale ... Read moreUniversity Press in 2013. Show Less
Reviews for This is London: Life and Death in the World City
The lower depths of London today are brilliantly eviscerated in Ben Judah's This Is London, an Orwell for our grim times.
Roy Foster
Times Literary Supplement - Books of the Year 2017
Brilliant
Hanif Kureishi, author of The Buddha of Suburbia This is an important book - one that should open our eyes to the price ... Read moreothers often pay for our comfort.
Daily Telegraph
People say Ben Judah is Orwellian. They're Right. . . . He's a superb reporter.
William Leith
Evening Standard
Astonishing. . .Judah has travelled the length and breadth of the city, talking to and empathising with those too often airbrushed from the picture. . .As a former foreign correspondent, Judah is the ideal guide to this new landscape. . .important and impressive
Sunday Telegraph
A wonderfully-written, fascinating account of modern-day life, offering a glimpse of the world from those arriving in the city hoping for a better life. . .an important, detailed read on the stories of those often unheard
Simon Peach
Press Association
Judah grabs hold of London and shakes out its secrets. He has a gift for ingratiating himself into very foreign surroundings and teasing out stories. . .Judah has done an important service in capturing the voices of those swept to the margins by economic forces beyond their control
Economist
Compassionate, fresh and courageous
Spectator
Judah is brilliant at winning the confidence of London's immigrant poor and encouraging them to talk . . . In terms of getting under the skin of a small part of England, Judah has written the most impressive book since Nick Davies' Dark Heart . . . Work like this is vital in reminding the middle classes that poverty - the filthy and beggarly poverty of soul-destroying drudgery and an empty stomach - is more than a set of figures in the negative column of the UK PLC balance sheet. It is an ineradicable feature of the economic system on which much of the middle classes' own prosperity depends
Little Atoms
A chronicle of the capital so incisively up-to-date it is disconcerting, invigorating, and depressing all at once . . . Judah allows the new Londoners to speak for themselves and, in so doing, shines a light on the dark corners of the city
Lilian Pizzichini
Mail on Sunday
Amazing
Peter Pomerantsev [Judah travels through the city, coaxing astonishing interviews from a wide range of migrants . . . He captures the different voices with great skill . . . His observations are acute . . . His interviews are always psychologically telling . . . Most remarkable is Judah's obvious compassion, to which his subjects respond, opening their hearts and letting their voices tumble into his tape recorder . . . London emerges from this book as a disturbing, dramatically changing city . . . It is an extraordinary portrait of a city and a rare treat to come across a book in which the ideas are as compelling and fresh as the writing. This is London is a game changer. No longer can we stroll past villages of sleeping Roma and pretend they do not exist. This is London today and Ben Judah is its chronicler
Literary Review
This Is London is an exhilarating account of the British capital . . . His writing is visceral, and at its best echoes the immersive style of the great Polish reporter and author Ryszard Kapuscinski . . . He treats his subjects with great sensitivity . . . an important, unflinching piece of reportage. Judah digs deep into parts of London that a less adventurous journalist would avoid, unearthing some of the many tragic narratives shaping a city at the turbulent forefront of globalisation
The National (Scotland)
Ben Judah offers no answers; but bears witness. He reports the stories of London's immigrants with a smart mind, a light touch and a brave and compassionate heart. These statements deserve to be heard. This is London is an important, state of the nation, eye-opening report from our increasingly ghettoized capital city
Dan Boothby, author of Island of Dreams A vital, almost overwhelming panorama of brutality and injustice
Metro
Mesmerising, trenchant and deeply compassionate
Book of the Month
Bookseller
Having spent the last year meeting people along several of the world's busiest migration trails, it is fascinating to read Ben Judah's powerful account of where some of them end up. Judah has created an alternative and essential guide to London, and Londoners, in 2015.'
Patrick Kingsley
Guardian
An eye-opening investigation into the hidden immigrant life of the city . . . You won't read a more succinct analysis
Sunday Times
This truly extraordinary book is as raw, powerful, unflinching, witty, engaging, shocking, in-your-face and occasionally both heartwarming and heartbreaking as the great but complex and flawed city it chronicles. I've lived in London for three decades yet found something I didn't know about it on virtually every page
Andrew Roberts, author of Napoleon the Great However well you think you know the city, you'll see it afresh after reading this immersive account by Judah . . . by turns heartbreaking and heartening, and sometimes both in the space of a page. It's a fizzing, buzzing, choral account of the 21st-century capital
Daily Telegraph
Work of this sort really is necessary; this is the stuff we must think about it we are ever to get to grips (assuming it's not too late already) with what lies ahead for our cities. Every MP should be given a copy immediately. On every page lies and uncomfortable truth, in every paragraph sheer horror. It is a book that demonstrably improves the eyesight. Read it, and the streets will look different: I guarantee it. Above all, more than I can possibly say, I admired its author's pluck, determination, compassion and refusal to judge - and I'd like him to know that some of the stories he told will haunt me for a long time to come
Rachel Cooke
New Statesman
An epic account of London as a place where global migrants come to scratch a subsistence living or, occasionally, spend a shady fortune. We are far, far beyond the Windrush generation here. Arabs, Afghans, Nigerians, Poles, Romanians and Russians pour out their stories - often terrifying, mostly sad, occasionally funny - while Judah writes it all down in compulsive, shocking detail. We're back in Mayhew's London, but now watercress sellers and mudlarks have been replaced by sleepy Africans catching the early morning night bus to their office cleaning jobs four zones over on the other side of town.
Guardian, included in the ten best non-fiction books about London feature
This is of my favourite books on London, largely because of the quality of the writing - such sass, such soaring confidence and style . . . Judah listens and observes with acute loyalty to depicting truth, so that no matter who's talking, the dialogue seems brilliantly accurate. Well researched, it covers all corners of London in forensic detail
Diana Evans, author of Ordinary People Judah has succeeded in opening reader's eyes to the hardships experienced by many and ignored by most
Independent
A revelatory work, full of nuggets of unexpected information about the lives of others . . . [Judah] is a fine, intrepid reporter
Financial Times
It is hard to overstate the value of what Judah has done . . . This is London is an important and impressive book
Sunday Telegraph
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