A NOTTINGHAM publisher will print a new edition of a largely forgotten Alan Sillitoe novel.
The reprint of The Open Door will be launched at Nottingham Contemporary on Saturday as part of Alan Sillitoe Day.
A stage version of Sillitoe's short story The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner is being staged this week at Nottingham Playhouse, while Saturday's book launch comes as part of a day and night of events at Nottingham Contemporary celebrating his work.
In November, Djanogly Art Gallery, at Lakeside Arts Centre, will stage an exhibition of photography based around Saturday Night And Sunday Morning. Shirley Anne Field, who co-starred as Doreen in the celebrated 1960 film version, will open the exhibition.
Alan Sillitoe's son David, who is one of the people behind Alan Sillitoe Day and the push to get him a permanent memorial in the city, said it was important for Nottingham to remember his father and make something of a literary tradition that includes him, Byron and Lawrence.
"If that's not a fantastic literary heritage for a city, I don't know what is," he said.
"It just seems the time is right for a reappraisal.
"It takes a lot to get it going. All these things are fantastic, but they are from people who are working really hard to generate them.
"We need the support of the people. It's a big ask."
For Nottingham-based publishers Five Leaves, a new edition of The Open Door was a new spin on a company tradition.
"Every year we publish a nice hardback edition of a forgotten book by a Nottingham writer," editor Ross Bradshaw said.
"Although Alan Sillitoe is hardly a forgotten writer, that particular book seems to get a bit lost.
"It's an important novel because it's a bit autobiographical. It's part of the Seaton trilogy but it takes the story back a bit further."
Its protagonist is Brian Seaton, Arthur's older brother. And it follows his return, sick with tuberculosis, from Malaya and military service in 1949. It's worth noting that Alan Sillitoe also left Malaya and the services in 1949, ill with tuberculosis.
"There's this working-class lad who's pitched back up in Nottingham and who doesn't feel quite as comfortable at home as he used to and starts to meet other writers," Mr Bradshaw said of the autobiographical book.
