Maria Fusco in conversation with Gareth Gavin at Blackwell’s

Award-winning working-class writer Maria Fusco will be talking about her new book Who does not envy with us is against us with the University of Manchester’s Centre for New Writing lecturer Gareth Gavin (Never Was).

Published by top indie Broken Sleep Books, Who does not envy with us is against us is a collection of essays on working-classness that weaves together the analytical and the poetic to create what has been described as “an affecting and profound work”. Here’s what the publisher’s blurb says: “With expressive prose, Fusco deftly captures the experiences of the global working class, illuminating emotions that unite them across borders and lines. This is a tribute to the resilience and tenacity of working-class communities, and an invitation to readers to join in a deeper understanding of their struggles and triumphs. Through her masterful storytelling, Fusco utilises the power of language to elevate the voices of those who have long been silenced, creating a symphony of words that will echo long after the final page.”

Author of Corey Fah Does Social Mobility Isabel Waidner – recently seen delivering the keynote conference speech at the Man Met x Comma Press all-dayer – says: “I love this book with my entire life and beyond. Fact that I grew up a thousand miles south of Belfast, but, days after reading, feel like I’m – or should be – from there is testament to Fusco’s analytic and lyric genius, and her ability to move and affect. Fusco mobilises a previously unnamed mood shared by the international, intergalactic working classes, I’ve never seen anything like it. Read this book.”

Born in Belfast and based in Scotland, Maria Fusco’s  interdisciplinary work spans the registers of critical and theoretical writing, fiction and performance. Her work has been commissioned by bodies including Artangel, BBC Radio 4 and National Theatre Wales, and supported by Arts Council England, Creative Scotland and the Royal Opera House. She is the founder/editor of The Happy Hypocrite journal for experimental writing, the author of eight sole-authored books and writer/director of five large-scale performance works, most recently the opera-film History of the Present, co-made with Margaret Salmon with ew composition by Annea Lockwood. She is Professor of Interdisciplinary Writing at the University of Dundee, previously holding posts at the University of Edinburgh and Goldsmiths, University of London.