Welcome to your After the Apocalypse: Writing the Contemporary reading list. Here you will find the resources to support you throughout your module.
Key Texts
Students will be expected to obtain their own copies of these set texts
Sea Fret by Brown, T.The sea took my house and not yours, everything's different for me. Rising sea levels are threatening the ground beneath her house, but Ruby is distracted. She wants one final blowout before her best friend, Lucy, leaves for University. With the local community in favour of letting nature take its course, Ruby must choose: follow Lucy inland or stay and help her father hold back the tide. Sea Fret is about erosion - the collapse of friendship, family and home. Tallulah Brown's play is a paean to her native Suffolk coastline. It received its world premiere at the Old Red Lion Theatre, London, on 28 March 2017.
Oil by Hickson, E.The Bronze Age. The Iron Age. The Age of Oil. The Stone Age didn't end for want of stones. Oil follows the lives of one woman and her daughter in an epic, hurtling collision of empire, history and family. Ella Hickson's explosive play drills deep into the world's relationship with this finite resource. It is 'the single most gloriously audacious piece of playwriting of the last few years' Evening Standard.
Animal's People by Sinha, I.Ever since he can remember, Animal has gone on all fours, the catastrophic result of what happened on That Night when, thanks to an American chemical company, the Apocalypse visited his slum. Now not quite twenty, he leads a hand-to-mouth existence with his dog Jara and a crazy old nun called Ma Franci, and spends his nights fantasising about Nisha, the daughter of a local musician, and wondering what it must be like to get laid. When a young American doctor, Elli Barber, comes to town to open a free clinic for the still suffering townsfolk - only to find herself struggling to convince them that she isn't there to do the dirty work of the 'Kampani' - Animal plunges into a web of intrigues, scams and plots with the unabashed aim of turning events to his own advantage. Compellingly honest, entertaining and entirely without self-pity, Animal's account lights our way into his dark world with flashes of pure joy - from the very first page all the way to the story's explosive ending. ANIMAL'S PEOPLE is a stunningly humane work of storytelling that takes us right to the heart of contemporary India.