Online Author Event: Paul Mendez in conversation with Rajani Naidoo
Hosted by University of Bath Library and Bath and North East Somerset Council for Black History Month 2021
Event date: Thursday 28th October 2021
Event time: 6pm-7pm
Event location: Online Zoom webinar
Tickets:
200 free tickets available.
Booking link: bit.ly/PaulMendezAuthorEvent
Event details:
An online event with author Paul Mendez, in conversation with Professor Rajani Naidoo, is being hosted by University of Bath Library and Bath and North East Somerset Council for Black History Month 2021. Open to all of Bath and North East Somerset, the event will take place 6-7pm on Thursday 28th October. Free tickets to the Zoom webinar will be available to book from Thursday 7th October onwards.
Discussions will revolve around Paul’s debut novel Rainbow Milk; the politically, socially and culturally relevant topics and themes featured in the book; and some insight into Paul’s inspiration and writing process. There will also be a short reading from the book, and a chance for the audience to ask some questions.
Please note, mature themes will be discussed during this event, and a minimum age of 16 is advised for attendees.
About Paul Mendez, the author:
Paul Mendez is a London-based novelist, essayist and screenwriter. Born in 1982 and raised Jehovah’s Witness in the Black Country, Mendez disassociated himself from the Witnesses while still a teenager. After reading James Baldwin’s Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone, Mendez began keeping a journal while employed variously in sex work, waitering, voice work and journalism. In 2020, Dialogue Books published Rainbow Milk, which featured in the Observer’s prestigious Top Ten Debut Novels list and was shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize. He has contributed to Glass, Esquire, The Face, Vogue, the Times Literary Supplement and the Brixton Review of Books, and is currently reading the MA in Black British Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London.
About Rainbow Milk:
Rainbow Milk is an intersectional coming-of-age story, following nineteen-year-old Jesse McCarthy as he grapples with his racial and sexual identities against the backdrop of a Jehovah's Witness upbringing and the legacies of the Windrush generation.
In the Black Country in the 1950s, ex-boxer Norman Alonso is a determined and humble Jamaican who has moved to Britain with his wife to secure a brighter future for themselves and their children. Blighted with unexpected illness and racism, Norman and his family are resilient in the face of such hostilities, but are all too aware that they will need more than just hope to survive.
At the turn of the millennium, Jesse seeks a fresh start in London - escaping from a broken immediate family, a repressive religious community and the desolate, disempowered Black Country - but finds himself at a loss for a new centre of gravity, and turns to sex work to create new notions of love, fatherhood and spirituality.
Rainbow Milk is a bold exploration of race, class, sexuality, freedom and religion across generations, time and cultures. Paul Mendez is a fervent new writer with an original and urgent voice.
Rainbow Milk has been nominated for the following prizes: Shortlisted for the Polari First Book Prize 2021 Longlisted for the Desmond Elliot Prize 2021 Shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize 2021 Shortlisted for the British Book Awards Debut Book of the Year 2021