The Book of Coventry

As German bombs rain down on the city during the Blitz, a teenage girl discovers she has unearthly abilities… A young woman by the name of Godiva finds herself being stalked by mysterious graffiti sprayed across the city… On his first shift, a tour bus guide decides to go off route, taking his only passenger along for the ride… Often overshadowed by its higher-profile Midlands neighbours, Coventry’s quiet demeanour conceals a steadfast spirit of resilience and resourcefulness. From rebuilding itself after the devastation of WWII, to overcoming huge social-economic decline during the 1970s and 80s, Coventry has long been a city of resolve and rebirth, a place used to picking itself up and dusting itself down. The stories gathered here attest to this fortitude, following a host of characters who see their own myriad struggles reflected in the city’s sometimes precarious development. From the young Asian girl witnessing National Front marches on her own street, to the alienated newcomer who burrows deep into local history for distraction, these stories reveal the steely tenacity that underpins this most unassuming and fascinating of UK cities.

Raef Boylan is a Coventry-based writer who experiments. He is the Lead Editor of Here Comes Everyone, a Coventry-based, bi-annual literary magazine of poetry, fiction, articles and artwork. published by Silhouette Press. He is the recipient of first class Creative Writing degrees from Coventry University and the University of Warwick. He also organises Fire & Dust (Coventry’s monthly poetry open mic), and is a previous winner of the CU Short Story Award and Frederick Holland Poetry Collection Award, and has been shortlisted for The Big Issue Short Fiction Award. He recently headlined at Positi