The Ballad of Yellow Wednesday

<p><strong>Longlisted for the Laurel Prize 2023</strong></p><p>In 1992, a group of young people began to protest against the extension of the M3 motorway through Twyford Down – a new road that would carve through the chalk hills of one of England’s ‘protected’ Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. <em>The Ballad of Yellow Wednesday</em>, published thirty years later, contains powerful, moving and honest depictions of the campaign, exploring the ways in which language reaches us, saves us, or fails to convince us. Here, protest actions are juxtaposed with judicial statements, teetering between the active and passive voice, the human and non-human.</p>