BIG MAN follows the life of Big, a middle-aged, Black British gay man who lives a gentle life with his boyfriend, Little, in their home in East London. Big and Little enjoy evenings out and group holidays with friends, as much as practising yoga together at home, and running side by side along the Hackney canals.

Big came of age in the club scene under the watchful eye of Mother, an African American trans woman who made a home and a name for herself in London, her house a refuge for wayward queer youth like Big. When he finds out Mother is releasing a memoir, the two reconnect after decades of distance, and Big finds himself having to confront a long-repressed assault that opens old – and new – wounds.

A tender, daring novel full of gentle humour, BIG MAN explores themes of identity, aging, sex, family, and trauma, turning a lens on what it means to age as a queer person, while being a double-edged love letter to the people and places that make us.

“Original and beautifully written” - Harry Lighton, writer and director of Pillion

Dean Atta is the author of YA novels-in-verse The Black Flamingo and Only on the Weekends and a poet named as 'one of poetry's greatest modern voices' (Gay Times). The Black Flamingo was a top-selling debut of 2020 and was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize, CILIP Carnegie Medal, The Jhalak Prize and The YA Book Prize. It was also awarded the prestigious Stonewall Book Award and the Carnegie Shadowers' Choice Award 2020, and sold to the US in a five-way publisher auction. He is co-writer of the BAFTA and BIFA nominated short film Two Black Boys in Paradise. BIG MAN is his adult debut.