Acquired For Development By
Twenty-five writers, twenty-five different perspectives on the rapidly changing London Borough of Hackney. From gentrification to supermarket sandwiches, Turkish Alevism to inner-city river living, middle-class civil war to pylon romance, Acquired for Development By captures an alternative, insightful and sometimes bizarre take on modern London life.
This anthology takes the form of short stories, essays and poetry.It has been featured on BBC London 94.9FM, on Resonance 104.4FM, extracted in Hamish Hamilton’s Five Dials journal, featured in Dazed and Confused and a sold out show at Stoke Newington Literary Festival.Well into its third print run, Acquired For Development By was the book that started Influx Press, and a big success for an independent press.
Acquired for Development By is an anthology edited by Gary Budden and Kit Caless. It features the following writers:Lee Rourke, Molly Naylor, Tim Burrows, Siddartha Bose, Laura Oldfield Ford, Gavin James Bower, Nell Frizzell, Sam Berkson, Isaura Barbe-Brown, Paul Case, Ashlee Christoffersen, David Dawkins, Anita De Mahy, Kieran Duddy, Angela Watts, Eithne Nightingale, Natalie Hardwick, Daniel Kramb, Rosie Higham Stainton, Georgia Myers, Colin Priest, Brendan Pickett, Gareth Rees, Ania Ostrowska.
“A literary dolly mixture and a superb collection of original writing about London’s most fascinating borough. This is Hackney without the hackneyed, and a must-read for anyone who cares about the area.”
‘From its first electric crackle, Acquired For Development By… galvanises the landmarks of Hackney on the page. Short stories, journalism and poems cross paths as the flow of images takes you from a homely borough to the fringes of what you know via a future Dalston you’ll never visit.’
‘…the anthology exhibits a solid kernel of realism about Hackney in the 21st century, making it an invaluable document of record and reflection.’
Taken together, these pieces reveal an original cultural history and a leftfield psychogeography of the borough – and an unsettling blueprint for its future.’
’2012 continues to be a bumper year for London books. From the addictive and moving testimonies of Craig Taylor’s Londoners to the neo-Dickensian city epics of John Lanchester and Zadie Smith, addicts of London literature are spoilt for choice. Acquired for Development by is a worthy addition to this canon, an exuberant and provoking exploration of our yesterdays and our tomorrows as revealed by our present.’