''Pig'', is the debut novel of English author

Andrew Cowan Andrew Cowan (13 December 1936 – 15 October 2019) was a Scottish rally driver, and the founder and senior director of Mitsubishi Ralliart until his retirement on 30 November 2005. Early years Cowan was raised in Duns, a small town in the ...

. Published in 1994 it won the

Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award The Sunday Times / University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year award is a literary prize awarded to a British author under the age of 35 for a published work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry. It is administered by the Society of Authors and ha ...

, a Betty Trask Award, the

Ruth Hadden Memorial Award The Ruth Hadden Memorial Award is a former award for the best first novel published in Britain, which was administered by the Booktrust. It was awarded in the early 1990s and has now been discontinued. The award was unusual in that the prize was ...

, the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award and a Scottish Council Book Award, and was shortlisted for five other awards.

Plot introduction

''Pig'' is a coming-of-age story set in a bleak post-industrial English new town as told by 15 year-old narrator Danny. The eponymous pig is kept by Danny's grandparents in a run-down cottage, but when his grandmother dies and his grandfather is placed in a nursing home, Danny starts looking after the elderly pig. With his Indian girlfriend Surinder he creates a haven away from his racist neighbours and stifling family.

Inspiration

The book took the author six years to write and commemorated his first girlfriend and his own grandfather.Andrew Cowan's success story , Books , The Guardian
Retrieved 2019-01-23. Its setting and context were based on the town of

Corby Corby is a town in North Northamptonshire, England, located north-east of Northampton. From 1974 to 2021, the town served as the administrative headquarters of the Borough of Corby. At the 2011 United Kingdom census, 2011 Census, the built-up ...

where the author grew up. After many rejections from publishers Cowan sent off a manuscript to the Betty Trask Awards and won £7,000. Within days of winning the award Cowan received 12 letters from publishers interested in the book.

Reception

* A solid, strong effort from a prize-winning Scottish-born writer who peers closely into the struggles of a sensitive boy as he tries to hold on to those things most precious to him.... small but excellent tale of contemporary English society." - Kirkus Reviews, 07/15/1996 * "Mostly, Mr. Cowan's prose is plain as a pikestaff, earnestly fixed on the physical world. But his minimalism is not of the frozen or portentous type....The author's dispassionate gaze carries with it great compassion.... e book is a coming-of-age story as strange and surprising, in its way, as ''

The Catcher in the Rye ''The Catcher in the Rye'' is an American novel by J. D. Salinger that was partially published in serial form from 1945–46 before being novelized in 1951. Originally intended for adults, it is often read by adolescents for its themes of angs ...

''. It is a novel about inarticulateness and confusion that could not itself be more direct and sure." - New York Times Book Review, 12/15/1996.Pig - The New York Times
Retrieved 2019-01-23. * "In sentence upon sentence of finely honed prose, Scottish-born Andrew Cowan meticulously creates a richly textured, thickly detailed portrait of a sensitive young man trying to salvage something of value from the fragments of a shattered world....'Pig' portrays the poignancy of its situation in loving, painstaking detail." - Los Angeles Times Book Review, 12/22/1996.Pig Andrew Cowan - poche - Andrew Cowan - Achat Livre , fnac
Retrieved 2019-01-23.

References

External links

{{official, http://www.andrew-cowan.com/book/pig 1994 British novels Pigs in literature British bildungsromans Novels about racism 1994 debut novels Michael Joseph books Corby