Letters of Note: Fathers

Letters of Note: Fathers is a collection of thirty letters that explore the relationship between father and child, as complex and varied as such a bond can be. Letters of invaluable paternal advice from the likes of Ted Hughes and Mahatma Gandhi sit amongst angry letters from child to father, including a blistering missive from the son of novelist William Burroughs and a centuries-old complaint discovered in Egypt, the mood of which feels amusingly modern.

A moving exchange between a gay father and his gay son could only have been published in recent years, as could the correspondence from 2016 in which father and son share their fears around increased police brutality in the US. Elsewhere, an ex-slave writes to his former owner and warns her that he is coming, with assistance, to collect his children.

Through it all can be found humour and sadness, hope and fear, pride and frustration. An emotional journey not unlike fatherhood itself.

Includes letters by:

Anne Frank

W.E.B. Du Bois

Jawaharlal Nehru

Groucho Marx

Che Guevara

Ted Hughes

Katherine Mansfield

Fergal Keane

Arthur Conan Doyle

Samuel Bernstein

& many more