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Costa and Sebastián arrive in Cochabamba, Bolivia, to shoot a period film about Columbus’s arrival in the Americas. Sebastián, the director, wants to upturn the entire conservative myth of Western Civilisation’s arrival in the Americas as a force for good. His story is about what Columbus set in motion; the obsession with gold, the hunt for slaves by Spanish mastiffs, and punitive violence to those Indians who fought back. Costa, the producer, doesn’t care what happened yesterday never mind five centuries ago, he just wants to get the job done on time and within budget. The battle to get their film made intertwines with the fight of their Bolivian crew members, deprived of their most basic rights, prohibited from collecting even the rain.

As Sebastián and Costa struggle with their film, the violence in the community in which they shoot increases by the day until the entire city explodes into the now infamous Bolivian Water War of April 2000. Five hundred years after Columbus, sticks and stones confront the steel and gunpowder of a modern army. David against Goliath once again. Only this time they fight not about gold, but the simplest of life-giving elements: water.

Features full screenplay with extra scenes and introductions from Paul Laverty and Icíar Bollaín.

Winner, Audience Award, Berlin Film Festival 2011
Bridging Borders Award, Palm Springs International Film Festival
Four Progressive Film Awards
Thirteen Goya Award Nominations
Spain’s Official Entry for the 2011 Academy Awards

‘Deeply felt convictions and first-rate craftsmanship’ -  Wall Street Journal

‘Even the Rain reminded me in one of the most masterful ways I have ever seen, that the Indigenous people are still being dehumanized in the 21st Century.’ – Edward James Olmos

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Fergus met Frankie on his first day at school and they’ve been in each others’ shadow ever since. As teenagers they skipped school and drank cider on the ferry over the River Mersey, dreaming about travelling the world.

In September 2004, Fergus persuaded Frankie to join his security team in Baghdad: £10,000 a month, tax free; their last chance to ‘load up’ in this increasingly privatised war. Together they risked their lives in a city steeped in violence, terror and greed, and awash with billions of US dollars. Three years later, Frankie is killed on Route Irish, the most dangerous road in the world.

Back in Liverpool, a grief-stricken Fergus rejects the official explanation that Frankie was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and begins his own investigation into his soul mate’s death. Only Rachel, Frankie’s partner, grasps the depth of Fergus’s sorrow, and the lethal possibilities of his fury as he struggles to find his old self and the happiness he shared with Frankie twenty years earlier on the Mersey.

Features the full screenplay, character backstory, production notes and photographs from the film, plus background essays:

Aftermath by Mark Townsend
Private Security Contractors in Iraq by Haifa Zangana
Justice for Iraq by Mike Phipps.

‘A very dark and muscular revenge thriller… intricately plotted.’ – The Independent

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In Made in Bradford, novelist and sociologist M Y Alam presented research illustrating how stereotypes of young British Pakistani men found in the media, policy rhetoric and popular discourse differed from real life. In The Invisible Village, he continues his research across West Yorkshire, one of the most culturally diverse regions in Britain, and assesses whether similar misrepresentations apply to a much broader sample of the population.

The Invisible Village paints a vivid picture of everyday life in modern urban society with a series of insights and views of the world that may help us all make greater sense of it. Presenting stories drawn from conversations with people who talk openly and in moving terms about family, education, work, crime, migration, as well as home and belonging, this book allows us to look beyond the headlines.

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Supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

This autobiography traces Amadou’s early years in Mali, first accepting his blindness, then adapting, to finding a source of joy in music and playing alongside some of the country’s leading musicians. On meeting Mariam at an institute for the blind in Bamako, he discovers they share a passion for music and for life, they fall in love and begin their career as a duo in search of an international stage.

Away from the Light of Day is an inspiring story which reveals the source of this golden duo’s contagious music, threading its way between tradition, religion, hope and superstition.

‘I don’t think there’s ever been a band from Africa with whom people have engaged in quite such a way.’  – Damon Albarn

‘The fizziest afro-pop blues ever bottled.’  – Observer

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Articles related to Away From the Light of Day on the Route blog

Eric the postman is slipping through his own fingers… His chaotic family, his wild stepsons, and the cement mixer in the front garden don’t help, but it is Eric’s own secret that drives him to the brink. Can he face Lily, the woman he once loved thirty years ago? Despite outrageous efforts and misplaced goodwill from his football fan mates, Eric continues to sink.

In desperate times it takes a spliff and a special friend from foreign parts to challenge a lost postman to make that journey into the most perilous territory of all – the past. As the Chinese, and one Frenchman, say, ‘He who is afraid to throw the dice, will never throw a six.’

Features the full screenplay, including extra scenes, sixteen pages of colour photographs, plus introductions from Paul Laverty, Ken Loach, Eric Cantona and production notes from the cast and crew.

‘A surprising, beguiling comedy from Ken Loach, who, would you believe it, has made what’s certain to be his most crowd-pleasing and popular film since Kes, 40 years ago.’ – Jason Solomons, Observer

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Colombia, November 1993: a reconstructed old passenger train, bespangled with yellow butterflies, is carrying one hundred musicians, acrobats and artists on a daring adventure through the heart of a country soaked in violence. The intention is to put on free shows for locals at railway stations along the way: vibrant spectacles involving music, trapeze, tattoo-art, an ice museum and, star of the show, Roberto the fire-breathing dragon. Leading this crusade of hope is Manu Chao with his band Mano Negra.

Ramón Chao is on board to chronicle the journey. As the train climbs 1,000 kilometres from Santa Marta on the Caribbean Coast to Bogota in the Altiplano, Ramon keeps one eye on the fluctuating morale of the train’s eccentric cargo, and the other on the ever-changing physical and social landscape. As the papa of the train, he endures personal discomfort, internal strife, derailments, stowaways, disease, guerrillas and paramilitaries. When the train arrives in Aracataca, the real-life Macondo of One Hundred Years of Solitude, Mano Negra disintegrates, leaving Manu to pick up the pieces with those determined to see this once-in-a-lifetime adventure through to the end.

The Train of Ice and Fire is a book about hope and dreams in troubled times. It is about a father accompanying his son through an experience which will change his life. But most of all it is about Colombia, the flora, the fauna, the history, the politics and, more than any of that, it is a book about people.

Foreword by Ignacio Ramonet

Translated by Ann Wright
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Paperback version includes a set of colour photographs from El Espectador

Hardback Cover
With photos by Youri Lenquette
ISBN: 9781901927375
£8.99

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In Every Word Knows Something of a Vicious Circle Herta Müller describes how living under a dictatorship shapes her work. She outlines how words and writing allowed her to turn humiliation into a type of dignity that takes time to arouse suspicion.

Herta Müller was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2009. This book is a transcript of her acceptance speech and includes a telephone interview and an introduction by Georgia Brown.

Available as epub (iPhone, Sony reader etc) and pdf ebook formats.

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When you hear a certain song, where does it take you? What is the secret that connects music to our lives? Heart warming, moving and laugh out loud funny, Bringing It All Back Home is the truest book you will ever read about music and the things that really matter.

Author Ian Clayton listens to music as a kid to escape and as an adult to connect. In Bringing It All Back Home he has created a book about love, friendship, family and loss – about life and living it. While searching for a soundtrack to his own life story, he has discovered the heart that beats inside us all.

Other links
- Stay in touch with Ian Clayton on Bringing It All Back Home’s Facebook Page
- Postings relating to Bringing It All Back Home on the Route Blog..
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Hardback version

ISBN: 9781901927337
Extent: 272 pages

Do daughters step into their mothers’ shoes? How does this central relationship colour women’s lives? The tales in this anthology address these questions with honesty and vigour, weaving humour and warmth into the telling of small but significant tragedies.

Celebrated poets, the writers showcased here explore daughterhood and motherhood in their own unique styles and offer a distinct set of insights. They speak out in prose that fizzes and crackles, throwing light on this most formative of relationships. You’ll find plenty to uncover in this irreverent but heartfelt take on an age-old subject.

Some Girls’ Mothers have a Facebook page. Click here to become a fan.
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⁺Audio book is unabridged and all stories are read by the authors. Downloads as a zip file with all component stories as Mp3s

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