Surge

*Shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award 2019**Shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize 2019**Shortlisted for Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2019**Winner of the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry*Jay Bernard’s extraordinary debut is a fearlessly original exploration of the black British archive: an enquiry into the New Cross Fire of 1981, a house fire at a birthday party in south London in which thirteen young black people were killed. Dubbed the ‘New Cross Massacre’, the fire was initially believed to be a racist attack, and the indifference with which the tragedy was met by the state triggered a new era of race relations in Britain.