Stephen May is the author of six novels including Life! Death! Prizes! which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and The Guardian Not The Booker Prize. As well as the acclaimed Sell Us The Rope a novel about the three weeks Joseph Stalin spent in London in 1907. He has also been shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year with his debut TAG and is a winner of the Media Wales Reader’s Prize. His latest novel Green Ink is published in March 2025 by Swift Press. It’s the story of Lloyd George, his mistress Frances Stevenson and the former revolutionary socialist MP Victor Grayson. Stephen May lives in West Yorkshire.
Reviews of Green Ink
THE TIMES BOOKS TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2025
‘Stephen May has a nose for fascinating historical events’ The Times
‘A vivid and wholly credible recreation of post-Great War London – that threadbare, incendiary world of shabby intrigue, half-remembered figures now lost to the shadows, and an old order desperate to reestablish its corrupt credentials and squandered authority. All is imagined here in convincing and sardonic – and frequently hilarious – detail. Following the success of Sell Us The Rope, Stephen May has truly hit his stride’ – Robert Edric
‘Intrigue, betrayal, redemption – a glimpse behind the political scenes of a bygone British era that feels very contemporary’ – Rachel Seiffert
‘Stephen May has a nose for fascinating historical events, which he then gives the fictional treatment’ – The Times Books to Look Out For In 2025
Praise for Sell Us the Rope
‘The spry, sardonic voice of the new historical fiction. Original, adept and confident… What can I say, except that I wish I had written it myself?’ Hilary Mantel
‘A deeply satisfying novel. Incisive, inventive, frequently very funny’ Guardian
‘Historical facts furnish May with a cast of legends to bring to life, and he does it with verve and humour’ The Times
‘Brilliant and original — part historical novel, part romantic comedy, and part bildungsroman about a tyrant-in-waiting’ Marcel Theroux
‘A captivating thought-experiment that marks a consolidation of May’s powers as a writer’ Daily Telegraph
