Manchester is a city very familiar with transformation. In the 19th century, as the epicentre of the Industrial Revolution, this modest town in Northern England tripled in size becoming the first modern industrial city. In the 20th Century, the cotton industry that powered Manchester’s transformation moved elsewhere, and Manchester declined. In the current century, post-industrial Manchester is changing again. Within the last 15 years the city skyline has become populated with colossal residential skyscrapers housing many of the white-collar workers attracted to the new growth industries (media, gaming, financial services and creative industries) and fuelled by private capital.
The harsh reality of industrialisation in the earlier transformation is starkly exposed in Mary Barton (1848) by Elizabeth Gaskell showing the chasm between rich and poor. 170 years later, The Book of Manchester short story collection (2024) puts the city’s current property boom and rapid gentrification under the microscope. And as editor David Sue says the “deep, profound affection for the city [from these 12 writers, is]… tempered with an acute understanding of its myriad flaws and contradictions”.
Recommended books that explore the social changes in the city in recent years include Manchester Happened (2019) by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi which uses 12 short stories to depict the experiences of new arrivals in Manchester from Uganda between the 1950s and the present day. In Still Lives (2022), Reshma Ruia uses a middle age love affair and a family business in trouble to explore a yearning for identity and belonging amongst the South Asian community. Diaspora communities have made Manchester stronger but both these books show the painful experiences that go alongside the positive contributions.
And different kinds of transformation are seen in the alternate realities of Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange (1962) and Jeff Noon's Vurt (1993). Burgess’s brutal dystopian novel is more well-known for its ultraviolence and its invented language, Nasdat, yet is a work of philosophical depth raising profound questions about free will and morality - and featuring attempted state-sponsored transformation through the psychological conditioning of the central character Alex. Noon’s later dystopian work also bends reality through the mind-altering substance of the title and its multiple hallucinogenic properties. Even in this wild, often chaotic narrative, the neighbourhoods and streets of Manchester remain a recognisable backdrop.
In these six books, we see the transformation of a city and its residents play out in the past, present and in imagined futures. And in all situations, change comes with a price to pay.
MARY BARTON | Elizabeth Gaskell | NOVEL Penguin Classics | 1996 [1848] | S. 431 | Paperback 9,00€
THE BOOK OF MANCHESTER: A City in Short Fiction | David Sue (Ed.) | SHORT STORY COLLECTION Comma Press | 2024 | S. 176 | Paperback 18,47€
MANCHESTER HAPPENED | Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi | NOVEL Oneworld Publications | 2019 | S. 265 | Paperback 6,93€
STILL LIVES | Reshma Ruia | NOVEL Renard Press Ltd | 2022 | S. 322 | Paperback 17,70€
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE | Anthony Burgess | NOVEL | 1962 | S. 244 | Paperback 12,00€
VURT | Jeff Noon | NOVEL Angry Robot | 1993 | S. 360 | Paperback 12,99€
Ivan Wadeson
is Executive Director of Manchester City of Literature, the charity that manages the city’s UNESCO designation on behalf of Manchester City Council, Manchester Metropolitan University, the University of Manchester and the city’s writers, publishers, literary organisations and festivals. Prior to this Ivan has over twenty five years’ experience of working at senior levels in the cultural sector. This includes extensive periods at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Arts About Manchester, All About Audiences, The Dukes in Lancaster and Dance Consortia North West. Ivan is a Director at Coalesce Dance Theatre and a Common Purpose graduate.
