A City Burning: Angela Graham talks about that title

video shot and edited by John Geraint

A City Burning from Seren Books

26 short stories set in Wales, Northern Ireland and Italy, from the end of the econd World War to the Covid pandemic.

With a virtuoso control of tone, by turns elegiac, comic, lyrical, philosophical, A City Burning examines power of all types, exploring conflicts between political allegiances; between autonomy and intimacy; emotional display and concealment; resistance versus acceptance. The result is a deeply human book full of hauntingly memorable characters and narratives.

These stories are not comfortable… but they are honest, searing, insightful and very, very good.” – Inez Lynn

“Angela Graham is a brilliant new voice. This is literature that deserves to last.” – Kate Hamer

“In this powerful collection, Angela Graham shows herself master of the angle of vision: her tales capture the mercurial moment when a person’s world is changed forever, in a road or room, against a landscape, seascape or starscape, at the graveside or (as in the towering story, ‘Life-Task’) at a forsaken railway station in the aftermath of war.” – Stevie Davies

“These stories show us what the genre does best: the ‘snapshot’ of a moment which reveals a life or a culture in a moment of transition or realisation, what James Joyce called an ‘epiphany’. … This vivid, humane and beautifully-controlled collection suggests Angela Graham is another name to watch.”  – Prof Diana Wallace

“The Road is, appropriately, the opening story in this collection and by following that road we enter the world of Angela Graham… The characters are well drawn and their stories entice and intrigue. As a collection highly recommended.” – Graham Reid

A City Burning is an impressive kaleidoscope of landscape and language. Angela Graham’s short stories move rhythmically between Wales, Ireland and Italy, provoking conversation through their poetic score. ‘Acting Abby’, a play within a play, is a particular triumph and one sentence in this story serves as a metaphor for the book: ‘an invisible finger glides across the curtain like a harpist’s, releasing a ripple of movement.’ The movement is a little thought, a shift in perception as each story draws to an end.” – Angeline King

First Review of ‘A City Burning’