non-FICTION

Stephen Morris with Palash Davé

On 4 June 2020, we went live for the first time on Facebook with new author Stephen Morris, whose travel memoir on Russia, Black Tea, was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s Christopher Bland Prize.

Morris is married to a Russian, but his love affair with Russia began in childhood with a map on his wall. Simultaneously the insider and outsider, he takes us on his quest to make sense of the place and its people.

While the spine of his journey is a road and rail trip from the family dacha to Crimea, his frequent meanders and musings reveal as much about the author as the episodes and characters he describes.

“Elegiac, evocative and disarmingly candid, Black Tea… can be soothingly poetic and then bring you to a standstill with its sharp, searing honesty” – Lucy Ash, BBC Russia Correspondent.