News & Reviews

FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS

Forthcoming titles 2027

New publications from City of Words in 2027 include a pioneering nineteenth-century Brazilian novel, historical memoirs of South Sudan and Tahiti, a classic poetry anthology and a collection of reportage and commentary from The Guardian.

Read more →

News from Hokkaido

Hisashi Urashima’s Northern Lights

The editor of Hokkaido’s leading English-language magazine on the need for public recognition of the island’s artisans.

Read more →

Memorial

Remembering Willie Jones (1931–2025)

Willie Jones, author of Out of Our Hands, remembered as a writer, teacher and cross-country runner by the travel writer Orosz Péter.

Read more →

Book Review

Go to school? Or join a militia?

Documenting ‘a heroic effort to keep a secondary school functioning in a country where getting anything done is a headache.’

Read more →

Obituary

Hamid Dirar, 1940–2023

Hamid Dirar, Sudanese microbiologist, born 1940 in Wadi el Khireissab, Sudan, died 23 April 2023 in Khartoum.

Read more →

Book Review

A rare and moving memoir

A review of The Amulet in Sudan Studies describes it as ‘a rare and moving memoir of boyhood and coming of age’.

Read more →

Book Review

Barefoot in the forests of Sudan

Hamid Dirar’s ‘mesmerising’ account of his childhood in the borderlands of Sudan and Ethiopia is reviewed in The Times Literary Supplement by Robert Irwin, novelist and scholar of the Arab world.

Read more →

Podcast / Review

Neuromantics discuss Letters from Isohe

Elizabeth Hodgkin’s Letters from Isohe discussed in the Neuromantics podcast and the Brixton Review of Books.

Read more →

Book Launch

How do you study when there’s nothing to eat?

Fundraising for education in South Sudan at the launch of Letters from Isohe at the School of Oriental and African Studies.

Read more →

The Book Business

City of Words pop-up book stall

Recycling used books is a City of Words side-hustle. Buy while stocks last, and the weather holds.

Read more →

The Book Business

Why our books are sold on Amazon

No one loves Amazon, but most people use their services if they live where Amazon operates. In the case of a niche publisher such as City of Words there are special reasons.

Read more →