BIRD IN SPACE - OUT 2 FEBRUARY 2027

“Bird in Space is a tender and evocative novel, full of gentle humour and touching humanity. Jerry is an utterly endearing protagonist whose journey through Romania becomes as much a discovery of himself as of the country and its haunting past.  With its beautifully drawn characters, this is a deeply human story about love, memory and belonging, where the ordinary and extraordinary quietly intertwine.”

Lindsay Hawdon, author of Jakob’s Colours

‘Jerry had only been in Romania for a few hours and already the light had darkened.’

In London, Jerry Gold’s mother calls with an impossible demand; travel to Romania and into Ukraine to save a wooden house his grandfather built before the second world war from destruction.

Armed only with her blurred 1980s photographs, a befriended truck driver and museum director and a foreboding sense that the land knows him, Jerry is pushed through northern Romania’s forests and borderlands toward Chernivtsi in Ukraine and the stories about the house.

Once there, he is forced him to confront the truth about himself, what happened years ago in Communist Romania and what happens to the people and places we leave behind.

Blending Romanian new wave cinema, the art of Brâncuși, Romanian traditions and the richness of the landscape, BIRD IN SPACE blends history with the present day, depicting a country that is lost in time, still emerging from Communism and struggling with its present and future. The story is personal, one of searching and belonging and asks questions about middle age, the impact of war and what we do with our personal and built heritage.

 “I am overjoyed that BIRD IN SPACE will be published by Afsana Press. Through the book, I have tried to bring to life the beauty and strangeness that I found in Romania, a country steeped in tradition and history, with dark edges and a past that still impacts the country today. Romania is a country that somehow has always been in my psyche and family history, and I have used BIRD IN SPACE to try to understand the country and the impact it has had on me and my family’s history. I can’t wait to share BIRD IN SPACE with you all and after many years of trying to get this book completed, I am thrilled that it will soon be in print.”

“We’re always waiting with excitement for Miki’s next book,” said Afsana Press’ editor and co-publisher Goran Baba Ali. “Miki’s stories are clever, heartwarming, witty at times, and mostly human. There is a lot of deep thinking in Miki’s writing. Not pretentious, very readable and lucid, while almost each line and every scene holds in themselves the subtext of the story. That’s why Miki’s stories resonate with various readers, regardless their favourite genre.”

DEBUT NOVEL - WINTER SUN

He called me his ‘only friend’, his ‘best friend’. He wanted to be my friend ‘for life’. I had no idea what he was saying. He seemed so alone, so vacant. I was voiceless against his lament.

“…a page turner!” Niamh Boyce, author of The Herbalist & Her Kind

WINTER SUN, my debut novel was published by Afsana Press in March 2024.

“Bittersweet, funny and tender, Winter Sun is about the mysterious relationship between parent and adult child, the fragility of the ageing body, the strangeness of family holidays and the comforts of alcohol and literature. You can’t help falling in love with Miki and Abba, willing them on to find a common language — and ideally a whiskey they can both agree on.” Viv Groskop, author of The Anna Karenina Fix

“Winter Sun is a meticulous and vivid chronicle of a sons’ week in Tenerife with his aging father. Written from the heart, with skill and honesty, this is a warm, highly intelligent exploration of what it is to love a difficult and complicated father. Just beautiful. I was thoroughly moved by Winter Sun.” Niamh Boyce, author of The Herbalist and Her Kind.

“A gentle, finely crafted novel with a brilliantly realised father-son relationship, and a nuanced, beautifully written observation of old age. It’s fitting our narrator reads Saul Bellow in this book, because for me, Lentin’s achievement in ‘Winter Sun’ sits alongside Bellow’s in ‘Seize the Day’; they both create such a memorable and vivid rendering of a father-son relationship in adulthood.” Kevin Curran, author of Youth, Citizens and Beatsploitation.

 “I enjoyed this very much. By making his story very specifically Jewish/Irish, Lentin actually releases its universal quality. Everything about the characters and their relationship feels recognisable and true for sons and fathers everywhere. There will be no final answers. Beautifully achieved.” Gerry Stembridge, author of The Effect of Her.

A finalist in the Irish Novel Fair 2020, WINTER SUN is a captivating story of a son’s frustrating relationship with his father that comes to a head during a winter break in Tenerife.

Centred in the Hotel Optimist, amidst other hotel guests and a friendship made with the holiday rep, we enter the son’s quest to better connect and understand his father. Over nine days, this warm and honest novel explores what it is to love a difficult and complicated father with an honesty and humanity that includes many hilarious moments.

Described as a ‘page-turner’ by award-winning Irish author Niamh Boyce and ‘bittersweet, funny and tender’ by author Viv Groskop, there is a lightness of touch in this profound book about a sons’ love for his father and his desire to understand him, and to want that love and respect returned.

Author Miki Lentin commented on the release of his debut novel, “Winter Sun has been a labour of love. I’m thrilled that I have found a home for it through Afsana Press. Writing Winter Sun took me to places I often didn’t want to go, but I wanted to show that we don’t always really know our parents and that sometimes, despite our best efforts, they remain hidden from us. But writing Winter Sun as autofiction gave me the freedom to write a story that I hope has resonance for readers out there. My father died in 2014, so it’s perhaps fitting that Winter Sun was published in 2024, ten years after his death. I hope he would have been proud!”

For more information and review copies contact:

Afsana Press - Goran Baba Ali - goranbaba@gmail.com

Available on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Winter-Sun-Miki-Lentin/dp/1739982495

DEBUT COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES

 

“Lentin takes linear time and smashes it to pieces, reassembling the shards as narrative mosaics.” Lynda Clark, author Dreaming in Quantum.

INNER CORE, my collection of short stories was published by Afsana Press -

on 1 May 2022 and is now available on Amazon

“…consistently enthralling...funny, moving and disturbing in equal measure.” Francis Gilbert, author of I’m a Teacher Get Me Out of Here.

“Narrative slides effectively in and out of time, and the voice feels authentic,” about story Inner Core. David Shields, author of Reality Hunger.

"With delicacy, Lentin lets the most ordinary items and details – clothes that smell of bread, meringues, a café mess, a butter dish – to suggest larger, more nuanced and complex feelings and perceptions." Gerry Stembridge, author of The Effect of Her, co-writer of the film Nora.

"Miki's stories about working with refugees are sensitively observed and moving - and they will enrich your understanding of an ethically complex subject." Daniel Trilling, journalist and author of Lights in the Distance and Bloody Nasty People.

Inner Core is Miki Lentin’s debut collection of short stories. They cover death, anxiety, masculinity, family and children and social good. All things that touch the life of a middle-aged man. In these stories, written over two years, Miki Lentin travels to Istanbul with his wife while sleep-deprived, recounts memories of working and growing up in Dublin and explores what it means to do good in society today.

The collection is split into three parts: the first explores middle-age and mental health, the second looks at Miki’s work with refugees and the third speaks to memoires of his childhood. All told with Lentin's minimalist tone, Inner Core portrays his life on the edge.

Proceeds from the sales of this book went to the now closed refugee charity foodKIND, that supported refugees and vulnerable groups in crisis on the mainland of Greece, providing food for over 700 people every day.

WRITING BIOGRAPHY

 
MIR Photo.JPG
 

I took up writing while travelling the world with my family a few years. I completed a Creative Writing MA at Birkbeck, University of London in 2020, where I graduated with Merit.

I was a finalist in the 2020 Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair for my debut novel Winter Sun. I have been highly placed in competitions including the Short Story Memoir Prize with Fish Publishing in 2020 and 2022, Leicester Writes, Bricklane Bookshop Short Story Award 2022, and have been published in Litro, Storgy, Story Radio and MIR amongst others.

I have just completed my second novel Bird in Space, about a middle-aged man who travels to Romania and Ukraine to try to save a family home that is due for demolition, but ends up finding out more about his family’s past and himself.

A full list of my writing successes is below.

My writing SUCCESSES