A unique collective portrait of the United Kingdom during the national lockdown of 2020. Introduction by The Duchess of Cambridge. Text by Lemn Sissay MBE. Sunday Times Bestseller. 'Every bookcase should have this book' 'Beautifully heart-warming' and 'a keepsake for years to come'. Focused on three key themes - Helpers and Heroes, Your New Normal and Acts of Kindness, this book presents a unique portrait of the UK during the 2020 lockdown, through 100 community photographs. The net proceeds from the sale of the book will be equally split to support the work of the National Portrait Gallery and Mind, the mental health charity (registered 219830) Spearheaded by The Duchess of Cambridge, Patron of the National Portrait Gallery, Hold Still was an ambitious community project to create a unique collective portrait of the UK during lockdown. People of all ages were invited to submit a photographic portrait, taken in a six-week period during May and June 2020, focussed on three core themes - Helpers and Heroes, Your New Normal and Acts of Kindness. From these, a panel of judges selected 100 portraits, assessing the images on the emotions and experiences they conveyed. Featured here in this publication, the final 100 images present a unique and highly personal record of this extraordinary period in our history of people of all ages from across the nation. From virtual birthday parties, handmade rainbows and community clapping to brave NHS staff, resilient keyworkers and people dealing with illness, isolation and loss. The images convey humour and grief, creativity and kindness, tragedy and hope - expressing and exploring both our shared and individual experiences. Presenting a true portrait of our nation in 2020, this publication includes a foreword by The Duchess of Cambridge, each image is accompanied by the story behind the picture told through the words of the entrants, and further works show the nationwide outdoor exhibition of Hold Still.

An eye for an eye. It's very simple. You choose your homeland like a hyena picking and choosing where he steals his next meal from. Scavenger. Yes you grovel to the feet of Mengistu and when his people spit at you and kick you from the bowl you scuttle across the border. Scavenger. As a violent civil war rages back home in Ethiopia, teenager Alem and his father are in a bed and breakfast in Berkshire. It's his best holiday ever. The next morning his father is gone and has left a note explaining that he and his mother want to protect Alem from the war. This strange grey country of England is now his home. On his own, and in the hands of the social services and the Refugee Council, Alem lives from letter to letter, waiting to hear something from his father. Then he meets car-obsessed Mustapha, the lovely 'out-of-your-league' Ruth and dangerous Sweeney - three unexpected allies who spur him on in his fight to be seen as more than just the Refugee Boy. Lemn Sissay's remarkable stage adaptation of Benjamin Zephaniah's bestselling novel is published here in the Methuen Drama Student Edition series, featuring commentary & notes by Professor Lynette Goddard (Royal Holloway, University of London, UK) that help the student unpack the play's themes, language, structure and production history to date.

This seminal collection of Black British poets ignited a movement when it was first published in 1998. It celebrated the rising stars of the time, many of whom have since become established names. Inspired and influenced by roots, reggae and hip-hop, this anthology is edited by number one bestselling author and poet Lemn Sissay. Including work from: Chris Abani, Patience Agbabi, Malika Booker, John Citizen, Salena Godden, Lorraine Griffiths, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jackie Kay, Parm Kaur, Shamshad Khan, Cheryl Martin, Raman Mundair, Bunmi Ogunsiji, Koye Oyedeji, Mallissa Read, Vanessa Richards, Khefri Cybele Riley aka KA'frique, Roger Robinson, Joy Russell, Kadija Sesay, John Siddique, Labi Siffre, Lemn Sissay, Dorothea Smartt, Andria Smith, SuAndi, Tricky, Akure Wall, Marie Guise Williams

This is the story of a little boy called Alem who goes on an adventure. It's his birthday, but who knows where he can go to celebrate it? Maybe the bear, the fox, the treefrog or the bulldog know? But don't ask the dragon . . . or he will EAT you!

THE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER INDIE BOOK AWARDS NON-FICTION WINNER 'EXTRAORDINARY' The Times, 'BEAUTIFUL' Dolly Alderton, 'SHATTERING' Observer, 'INCREDIBLE' Benjamin Zephaniah, 'UNPUTDOWNABLE' Sunday Times, 'ASTOUNDING' Matt Haig, 'POWERFUL' Elif Shafak At the age of seventeen, after a childhood in a foster family followed by six years in care homes, Norman Greenwood was given his birth certificate. He learned that his real name was not Norman. It was Lemn Sissay. He was British and Ethiopian. And he learned that his mother had been pleading for his safe return to her since his birth. This is Lemn's story: a story of neglect and determination, misfortune and hope, cruelty and triumph. Sissay reflects on his childhood, self-expression and Britishness, and in doing so explores the institutional care system, race, family and the meaning of home. Written with all the lyricism and power you would expect from one of the nation's best-loved poets, this moving, frank and timely memoir is the result of a life spent asking questions, and a celebration of the redemptive power of creativity.

'There are children in Holbeck without crayons. Living in a city with an opera company. An opera company paid for with money from all of us. Until everyone has crayons no one gets opera. That’s what I believe.' A deeply moving memoir of how a group of artists fed their local community during the Covid pandemic. When crisis hits, and audiences stay home, what’s the most useful thing a theatre company can do? The answer was to become a food bank and one-stop-help-shop for those in need. In fifteen months, Slung Low would go on to deliver over 15,000 food parcels.

Winner of the Books Are My Bag Readers Award for Poetry First published in 1998, The Fire People celebrated the rising stars of the time, many of whom have since become established names. Edited by the number one bestselling author and poet Lemn Sissay OBE, this seminal anthology takes inspiration from roots, reggae and hip-hop. Including work from: Chris Abani, Patience Agbabi, Malika Booker, John Citizen, Salena Godden, Lorraine Griffiths, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jackie Kay, Parm Kaur, Shamshad Khan, Cheryl Martin, Raman Mundair, Bunmi Ogunsiji, Koye Oyedeji, Mallissa Read, Vanessa Richards, Khefri Cybele Riley aka KA'frique, Roger Robinson, Joy Russell, Kadija Sesay, John Siddique, Labi Siffre, Lemn Sissay, Dorothea Smartt, Andria Smith, SuAndi, Tricky, Akure Wall, Marie Guise Williams.

For the past decade, Lemn Sissay has composed a short poem as dawn breaks each morning. Life-affirming, witty and full of wonder, these poems chronicle his own battle with the dark and are fuelled by resilience and defiant joy. Let the Light Pour In is a collection of the best of these poems, and a book celebrating this morning practice. 'How do you do it?' said night 'How do you wake up and shine?' 'I keep it simple,' said light 'One day at a time.'

An eye for an eye. It's very simple. You choose your homeland like a hyena picking and choosing where he steals his next meal from. Scavenger. Yes you grovel to the feet of Mengistu and when his people spit at you and kick you from the bowl you scuttle across the border. Scavenger. As a violent civil war rages back home, teenager Alem and his father are in a B&B in Berkshire. It's his best holiday ever. The next morning his father is gone and has left a note explaining that he and his mother want to protect Alem from the war. This strange grey country of England is now his home. On his own, and in the hands of the social services and the Refugee Council, he lives from letter to letter, waiting to hear something from his father. Then Alem meets car-obsessed Mustapha, the lovely 'out of your league' Ruth and dangerous Sweeney - three unexpected allies who spur him on as Alem fights to be seen as more than just the Refugee Boy. Based on the novel by Benjamin Zephaniah, Refugee Boy is an urgent story of a courageous African boy sent to England to escape the violent civil war, a story about arriving, belonging and finding 'home'.

Lemn Sissay was seventeen when he wrote his first poetry book, which he hand-sold to the miners and millworkers of Wigan. Since then his poems have become landmarks, sculpted in granite and built from concrete, recorded on era-defining albums and declaimed in over thirty countries. He has performed to thousands of football fans at the FA Cup Final, to hundreds of thousands as the poet of the London Olympics, and to millions across our TV screens and the airwaves of BBC Radio. He has become one of the nation's best-loved voices.

Lemn Sissay's poems are laid into the streets of downtown Manchester, feature on the side of a public house in the same city and have been emblazoned on a central London bus route. He has been published in press as diverse as the the Times Literary Supplement and the Independent to The Face and Dazed & Confused. He has been commissioned to write poetry, documentaries and plays for Radio 1 and Radio 4. He has been involved in television in the roles of writing, performing and presenting. He is published in over sixty books and featured on the Leftfield album Leftism, which has sold over five million copies worldwide. Rebel Without Applause is the collection that started everything for Lemn Sissay.

Lemn Sissay brings together a stunning new collection, Morning Breaks in the Elevator. In Sissay's work, we witness declamation being honed and brought to fine art, establishing his reputation as one of the UK's foremost poets as he ably moves from loud protest through to quiet reflection.

This is the story of a little boy called Alem who goes on an adventure. It's his birthday, but who knows where he can go to celebrate it? Maybe the bear, the fox, the treefrog or the bulldog know? But don't ask the dragon . . . or he will EAT you!

Something Dark tells the true story of Lemn Sissay who as a baby was given up by his Ethiopian mother in the 1960s. He was renamed Norman Greenwood and nicknamed Chalky White throughout his turbulent childhood in care, only to find out his real name at the age of 18. No longer the possession of the social services, he left the brutal suburbs of Lancashire for the bright lights of Manchester where he became a celebrated performance poet. Aged 21 Lemn left for Gambia in search of his mother and the truth about his father.

Listener overflows with love poems, inner-city soap operas, reflections on history, mystery and felicity and much more. Every page sings with Sissay's unique voice - visionary, good-humoured and bursting with life.