Ashley Hickson-Lovence

Thursday 14 May 2026

It feels as if, so far this year, Suffolk Book League speakers have been more than usually imaginative, innovative and eclectic. All of these epithets could be applied to Ashley Hickson-Lovence, who was interviewed in May most sensitively and sympathetically by our own Dee Crowe. There was a great feeling of rapport there, particularly over matters literary and Irish.  That chemistry extended to the audience when Ashley orchestrated a great ice-breaker around special bus routes and found he shared several favourite London bus numbers and journeys with some members.

A Londoner by birth, Ashley now lives in Norwich but his roots are partly from the small island of Grenada in the Caribbean, along with strong Irish connections. He is a great aficionado of the omnibus and mentioned that his grandad was a bus driver. His first novel The 392 (2020) captures the stories of various passengers on a London bus route; he also spoke about and read from his collection of poems Why I Am Not a Bus Driver (2025); some of which have public transport related themes and echoes. Additionally, he then described some of the other themes in his books, covering loss and separation, family and community and the experience of being Black and not quite fitting in. Ashley explained how this is an important strand in his latest novel for adults: About to Fall Apart (2026) while mentioning that he had not wanted to tackle race in a didactic way.

Readings from Ashley’s work captured the breadth of his creativity in both poetry and prose and how one complements and informs the other. About to Fall Apart tells the story of Adie, who lives in Ireland and is reunited with his estranged family.  Poetic and startlingly unorthodox in style, the book was inspired by a chance finding of a letter after Ashley’s grandmother’s death which led to a meeting with a hitherto unknown Ireland-based uncle. The writer spoke movingly of how other personal losses in his life have formed a psychological basis for other writing.

As a former teacher Ashley has a great speaking voice and a very wide range of interests. I loved his idea of having his own musical playlist for each book running from traditional Irish folk music to hip-hop. His literary influences are also broad, from Benjamin Zephaniah and John Agard to the American poet Frank O’Hara for verse and James Joyce and Eimear McBride (amongst others) for prose works. Finally, he has some good connections with Ipswich and last year presented at the inaugural Ipswich Book Festival on (where else) an iconic Routemaster red double-decker bus. All aboard!

Janet Bayliss