Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile

Adelle Stripe was born in 1976 and grew up in Tadcaster. Her debut novel, Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile, is inspired by the life and work of playwright Andrea Dunbar. It was shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and Portico Prize, an award for outstanding literature that best evokes the spirit of the North. A stage adaptation received widespread critical acclaim and was included in the Observer's Top Ten Shows of 2019.

Adelle is the author of three poetry chapbooks including 3:AM Magazine's Poetry Book of the Year, Dark Corners of the Land. She is a regular contributor to The Quietus, and her writing has appeared in the Guardian, New Statesman and Caught by the River.

She lives in the Calder Valley, West Yorkshire, UK.

Lisa Holdsworth won the 2011 Writer of the Year award in The RTS Yorkshire Awards and has worked on TV programmes such as Waterloo Road, Fat Friends and Emmerdale

Snaps and prickles and brings a talented, troubled woman to life. [Stripe] gives an important story a real spark: Dunbar's energy and mischief bubble in the bleakness
It fizzes like two Disprin in a pint of cider. You can read it in an afternoon and should; there are too few British novels as effervescent and as relevant as this.
A beautiful period piece of 1980s Britain, as funny and sad as anything by Dunbar herself