2025

Publisher: Dylan Thomas Prize

Year: 2025

Original source

Public
The Coin

The Coin

Yasmin Zaher

2024

Fiction

A bold and unabashed novel about a young Palestinian woman's unraveling as she teaches at a New York City middle school, gets caught up in a scheme reselling Birkin bags, and strives to gain control over her body and mindThe Coin's narrator is a wealthy Palestinian woman with impeccable style and meticulous hygiene.[Bokinfo]. === WINNER OF THE 2025 DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN DAZED, DEBUTIFUL AND THE INDEPENDENT 'A masterpiece' Slavoj Zizek | 'A filthy, elegant book' Raven Leilani | 'Glamorous and sordid' Elif Batuman 'Chipping away at Western hegemony one scalped it-bag at a time' New York Times A bold and unabashed novel about a young Palestinian woman's unraveling as she teaches at a New York City middle school, gets caught up in a scheme reselling Birkin bags, and strives to gain control over her body and mind.

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A bold and unabashed novel about a young Palestinian woman's unraveling as she teaches at a New York City middle school, gets caught up in a scheme reselling Birkin bags, and strives to gain control over her body and mindThe Coin's narrator is a wealthy Palestinian woman with impeccable style and meticulous hygiene.[Bokinfo].
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WINNER OF THE 2025 DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN DAZED, DEBUTIFUL AND THE INDEPENDENT 'A masterpiece' Slavoj Zizek | 'A filthy, elegant book' Raven Leilani | 'Glamorous and sordid' Elif Batuman 'Chipping away at Western hegemony one scalped it-bag at a time' New York Times A bold and unabashed novel about a young Palestinian woman's unraveling as she teaches at a New York City middle school, gets caught up in a scheme reselling Birkin bags, and strives to gain control over her body and mind. The Coin's narrator is a wealthy Palestinian woman with impeccable style and meticulous hygiene. And yet the ideal self, the ideal life, remains just out of reach: her inheritance is inaccessible, her homeland exists only in her memory and her attempt to thrive in America seems doomed from the start. In New York, she strives to put down roots. She teaches at a school for underprivileged boys, where her eccentric methods cross boundaries. She befriends a homeless swindler, and the two participate in a pyramid scheme reselling Birkin bags. But America is stifling her - her wilfulness, her sexuality, her principles. In an attempt to regain control, she becomes preoccupied with purity, cleanliness and self-image, all while drawing her students into her obsessions. In an unforgettable denouement, her childhood memories converge with her material and existential statelessness and the narrator unravels spectacularly. In enthralling, sensory prose, The Coin explores nature and civilisation, beauty and justice, class and belonging - all while resisting easy moralising. Provocative, wry and inviting, The Coin marks the arrival of a major new literary voice.

Rapture's Road

Rapture's Road

Seán Hewitt

2024

Poetry

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE * In this remarkable second collection, Seán Hewitt describes a journey haunted by love, loss and estrangement - from one of the Sunday Times 30 under 30 in Ireland 'Points to a bright future for Irish poetry' SUNDAY TIMES 'An exquisitely calm and insightful lyric poet' MAX PORTER As the mind wanders and becomes spectral, these poems forge their own unique path through the landscape. The road Hewitt takes us on is a sleepwalk into the nightwoods, a dream-state where nature is by turns regenerated and broken, and where the split self of the speaker is interrupted by a series of ghosts, memories and encounters.

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*SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE * In this remarkable second collection, Seán Hewitt describes a journey haunted by love, loss and estrangement - from one of the Sunday Times 30 under 30 in Ireland 'Points to a bright future for Irish poetry' SUNDAY TIMES 'An exquisitely calm and insightful lyric poet' MAX PORTER As the mind wanders and becomes spectral, these poems forge their own unique path through the landscape. The road Hewitt takes us on is a sleepwalk into the nightwoods, a dream-state where nature is by turns regenerated and broken, and where the split self of the speaker is interrupted by a series of ghosts, memories and encounters. Following the reciprocal relationship between queer sexuality and the natural world that he explored in Tongues of Fire, the poet conjures us here into a trance: a deep delirium of hypnotic, hectic rapture where everything is called into question, until a union is finally achieved – a union in nature, with nature. A threnody for what is lost, a dance of apocalypse and rebirth, Rapture’s Road draws us through what is hidden, secret, often forbidden, to a state of ecstasy. It leads into the humid night, through lethal love and grief, and glimpses, at the end of the journey, a place of tenderness and reawakening.

Glorious Exploits

Glorious Exploits

Ferdia Lennon

2024

Fiction

An utterly original celebration of that which binds humanity across battle lines and history. On the island of Sicily amid the Peloponnesian War, the Syracusans have figured out what to do with the surviving Athenians who had the gall to invade their city: they’ve herded the sorry prisoners of war into a rock quarry and left them to rot.

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An utterly original celebration of that which binds humanity across battle lines and history. On the island of Sicily amid the Peloponnesian War, the Syracusans have figured out what to do with the surviving Athenians who had the gall to invade their city: they’ve herded the sorry prisoners of war into a rock quarry and left them to rot. Looking for a way to pass the time, Lampo and Gelon, two unemployed potters with a soft spot for poetry and drink, head down into the quarry to feed the Athenians if, and only if, they can manage a few choice lines from their great playwright Euripides. Before long, the two mates hatch a plan to direct a full-blown production of Medea. After all, you can hate the people but love their art. But as opening night approaches, what started as a lark quickly sets in motion a series of extraordinary events, and our wayward heroes begin to realize that staging a play can be as dangerous as fighting a war, with all sorts of risks to life, limb, and friendship. Told in a contemporary Irish voice and as riotously funny as it is deeply moving, Glorious Exploits is an unforgettable ode to the power of art in a time of war, brotherhood in a time of enmity, and human will throughout the ages.
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An exhilarating, fiercely original story of brotherhood, war and art, and of daring to dream of something bigger than ourselves. 'Bold and totally unexpected, I loved this book' Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain 'A very special, very clever, very entertaining novel' Roddy Doyle, author of Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha *** It's 412 BC, and Athens' invasion of Sicily has failed catastrophically. Thousands of Athenian soldiers are held captive in the quarries of Syracuse, starving, dejected, and hanging on by the slimmest of threads. Lampo and Gelon are local potters, young men with no work and barely two obols to rub together. When they take to visiting the nearby quarry, they discover prisoners who will, in desperation, recite lines from the plays of Euripides for scraps of bread and a scattering of olives. And so an idea is born: the men will put on Medea in the quarry. A proper performance to be sung of down the ages. Because after all, you can hate the Athenians for invading your territory, but still love their poetry. But as the audacity of their enterprise dawns on them, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between enemies and friends. As the performance draws near, the men will find their courage tested in ways they could never have imagined ... *** 'Madly ambitious, cathartic like all great tragedy, but shockingly funny too, Ferdia Lennon's outstandingly original début is just glorious' Emma Donoghue, author of Room
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THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE WATERSTONES DEBUT FICTION PRIZE 2024 WINNER OF THE BOLLINGER EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE FOR COMIC FICTION 2024 WINNER OF THE AUTHORS' CLUB BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD WINNER OF THE PREMIO GREGOR VON REZZORI SHORTLISTED FOR THE NERO AWARD FOR DEBUT FICTION 2024 SHORTLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE JOHN MCGAHERN PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025 (DEBUT FICTION) A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK AT BEDTIME A BBC2 BETWEEN THE COVERS PICK PICKED AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE GUARDIAN, THE INDEPENDENT, THE IRISH TIMES, THE FINANCIAL TIMES AND THE TLS ‘One of the most original and brilliant debuts in years’ Irish Times ‘Bold and totally unexpected ... I was hooked from the first page’ Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain ‘Brilliant ... Hilarious, moving, and profound’ R. F. Kuang, author of Yellowface *** Ancient Sicily. Enter GELON: visionary, dreamer, theatre lover. Enter LAMPO: feckless, jobless, in need of a distraction. Imprisoned in the quarries of Syracuse, thousands of defeated Athenians hang on by the thinnest of threads. They’re fading in the baking heat, but not everything is lost: they can still recite lines from Greek tragedy when tempted by Lampo and Gelon with goatskins of wine and scraps of food. And so an idea is born. Because, after all, you can hate the invaders but still love their poetry. It’s audacious. It might even be dangerous. But like all the best things in life – love, friendship, art itself – it will reveal the very worst, and the very best, of what humans are capable of. What could possibly go wrong? *** ‘Fierce, funny, fast-paced ... Brings the ancient world roaring to life’ Joanna Quinn, author of The Whalebone Theatre ‘Love, war, poetry, reckless ambition, terrible failure, and glorious triumph ... A delicious treat of a read. I loved it’ Jon McGregor, author of Lean Fall Stand Sunday Times bestseller, August 2024
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Winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction Winner of the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize Shortlisted for Newcomer of the Year by the Irish Book Awards Shortlisted for the Nero Book Awards Debut Fiction Prize Nominated for the British Book Award for Debut Fiction Book of the Year Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal of Excellence Longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction Named a Best Book of 2024 by Slate, The Guardian, and the New York Public Library An utterly original celebration of that which binds humanity across battle lines and history. On the island of Sicily amid the Peloponnesian War, the Syracusans have figured out what to do with the surviving Athenians who had the gall to invade their city: they’ve herded the sorry prisoners of war into a rock quarry and left them to rot. Looking for a way to pass the time, Lampo and Gelon, two unemployed potters with a soft spot for poetry and drink, head down into the quarry to feed the Athenians if, and only if, they can manage a few choice lines from their great playwright Euripides. Before long, the two mates hatch a plan to direct a full-blown production of Medea. After all, you can hate the people but love their art. But as opening night approaches, what started as a lark quickly sets in motion a series of extraordinary events, and our wayward heroes begin to realize that staging a play can be as dangerous as fighting a war, with all sorts of risks to life, limb, and friendship. Told in a contemporary Irish voice and as riotously funny as it is deeply moving, Glorious Exploits is an unforgettable ode to the power of art in a time of war, brotherhood in a time of enmity, and human will throughout the ages.

The Safekeep

The Safekeep

Yael van der Wouden

2025

Fiction

"It is 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is truly over.

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"It is 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is truly over. Living alone in her late mother's country home, Isabel knows her life is as it should be--led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis brings his graceless new girlfriend Eva, leaving her at Isabel's doorstep as a guest, to stay for the season. Eva is Isabel's antithesis: she sleeps late, walks loudly through the house, and touches things she shouldn't. In response, Isabel develops a fury-fueled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house--a spoon, a knife, a bowl--Isabel's suspicions begin to spiral. In the sweltering peak of summer, Isabel's paranoia gives way to infatuation--leading to a discovery that unravels all Isabel has ever known. The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva--nor the house in which they live--are what they seem"--Dust jacket.

I Will Crash

I Will Crash

Rebecca Watson

2024

Fiction

'Completely immersive.' NATASHA BROWN 'Essential and startling.' COLIN BARRETT 'Compelling and poignant.' GLAMOUR 'Deeply mesmeric.' MICHAEL MAGEE 'Pacy and original.' Times Literary Supplement It was a peace offering, I knew that you don't appear on someone's doorstep uninvited, saying Alright unless you want to make amends It's been six years since Rosa last saw her brother. Six years since they last spoke.

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'Completely immersive.' NATASHA BROWN 'Essential and startling.' COLIN BARRETT 'Compelling and poignant.' GLAMOUR 'Deeply mesmeric.' MICHAEL MAGEE 'Pacy and original.' Times Literary Supplement It was a peace offering, I knew that you don't appear on someone's doorstep uninvited, saying Alright unless you want to make amends It's been six years since Rosa last saw her brother. Six years since they last spoke. Six years since they last fought. Six years since she gave up on the idea of having a brother. She's spent that time carefully not thinking about him. Not remembering their childhood. Not mentioning those stories, even to the people she loves. Now the distance she had so carefully put between them has collapsed. Can she find a way to make peace - to forgive, to be forgiven - when the past she's worked so hard to contain threatens to spill over into the present? From the acclaimed author of little scratch, this is a moving, powerfully honest novel about how we love, how we grieve and how we forgive.

Moderate to Poor, Occasionally Good

Moderate to Poor, Occasionally Good

Eley Williams

2025

Fiction
Forest of Noise

Forest of Noise

Poems

Mosab Abu Toha

2024

Poetry

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • "A powerful, capacious, and profound" (Ocean Vuong) new collection of poems about life in Gaza by an acclaimed Palestinian poet and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer You are alive for a moment when living people run after you. Barely thirty years old, Mosab Abu Toha was already a well-known poet when the current siege of Gaza began.

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A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • "A powerful, capacious, and profound" (Ocean Vuong) new collection of poems about life in Gaza by an acclaimed Palestinian poet and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer You are alive for a moment when living people run after you. Barely thirty years old, Mosab Abu Toha was already a well-known poet when the current siege of Gaza began. After the Israeli army bombed and destroyed his house, pulverizing a library he had painstakingly built for community use, he and his family fled for their safety. Not for the first time in their lives. Somehow, amid the chaos, Abu Toha kept writing poems. These are those poems. Uncannily clear, direct, and beautifully tuned, they form one of the most astonishing works of art wrested from wartime. Here are directives for what to do in an air raid; here are lyrics about the poet’s wife, singing to his children to distract them. Huddled in the dark, Abu Toha remembers his grandfather’s oranges, his daughter’s joy in eating them. Moving between glimpses of life in relative peacetime and absurdist poems about surviving in a barely livable occupation, Forest of Noise invites a wide audience into an experience that defies the imagination—even as it is watched live. Abu Toha's poems introduce readers to his extended family, some of them no longer with us. This is an urgent, extraordinary, and arrestingly whimsical book. Searing and beautiful, it brings us indelible art in a time of terrible suffering.

Mrs. Jekyll

Mrs. Jekyll

Emma Glass

2025

Fiction

Schoolteacher Rosy Winter is dying. But, beyond the homeopathic remedies, the dinner party obligations, the snatched whispers on wards and in staffrooms, a force - murderous, feminine, feverish - is stirring within her.

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Schoolteacher Rosy Winter is dying. But, beyond the homeopathic remedies, the dinner party obligations, the snatched whispers on wards and in staffrooms, a force - murderous, feminine, feverish - is stirring within her. A story of power and powerlessness, light and dark, life and death, Mrs Jekyll embraces the paradoxes and paroxysms of modern womanhood, in a story every bit as gripping as the original.
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Mrs Jekyll è il racconto della scoperta della propria potenza nascosta. La storia di una donna che, attraverso la malattia, si confronta con la parte più inquietante della propria anima: quella capace di essere crudele, quella capace di essere libera. Rosy Winter è un'insegnante, felicemente sposata con Charlie, e conduce un'esistenza normalissima tra cene con amici, lavoro, palestra e piccole gioie quotidiane. Un giorno, sfiorandosi il seno con un dito, avverte qualcosa di anomalo e il panico si impossessa di lei: la sua vita in un attimo prende una piega tragica, le prospettive cambiano, l'idea della fine le si palesa con raggelante evidenza. È l'inizio di un doloroso viaggio tra ospedali, medici e infermieri, in cui nessuno risulta in grado di curare quel male che cresce silenzioso dentro di lei. Tutti le appaiono goffi, inadeguati nei loro tentativi di esprimere compassione e preoccupazione, compreso suo marito. Rosy scopre così nella sofferenza l'abbandono e la solitudine: nessuno riesce a comprendere ciò che sta provando, e così, dopo un tentativo estremo di cura con un medium, la sua mente inizia a scivolare in luoghi in cui non è mai stata; e si aggrappa a un'ombra che non sapeva di covare. Solo allora, accettando il proprio destino e rinunciando a ogni remora o scrupolo morale, per la prima volta si apriranno per lei le porte del desiderio, della rabbia, del piacere. Con una prosa cristallina, cruda e affilata tanto quanto intensa e poetica, Emma Glass ci restituisce il ritratto di un risveglio vitale dall'impotenza della malattia: il riaffiorare di un'energia sprezzante e feroce, l'unica arma che possiamo opporre a una sentenza di morte.

The Hypocrite

The Hypocrite

Jo Hamya

2024

Fiction

ONE OF THE ATLANTIC'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • DAKOTA JOHNSON’S TEATIME PICTURES SEPTEMBER BOOK CLUB PICK ● From a fiercely talented writer poised to be a new generation’s Rachel Cusk or Deborah Levy, a novel set between the London stage and Sicily, about a daughter who turns her novelist father’s fall from grace into a play, and a father who increasingly fears his precocious daughter’s voice. “A sharp book, beautifully written.” —Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind and Entitlement "Excellent...I enjoyed the novel hugely...Like Edward St Aubyn and Anne Enright, Hamya is so good on generational conflict, the friction of family, and the damage done by charming but complacent men.

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ONE OF THE ATLANTIC'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • DAKOTA JOHNSON’S TEATIME PICTURES SEPTEMBER BOOK CLUB PICK ● From a fiercely talented writer poised to be a new generation’s Rachel Cusk or Deborah Levy, a novel set between the London stage and Sicily, about a daughter who turns her novelist father’s fall from grace into a play, and a father who increasingly fears his precocious daughter’s voice. “A sharp book, beautifully written.” —Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind and Entitlement "Excellent...I enjoyed the novel hugely...Like Edward St Aubyn and Anne Enright, Hamya is so good on generational conflict, the friction of family, and the damage done by charming but complacent men. But The Hypocrite is a strikingly original book too. I tore through it, shoulders clenched but full of admiration." —David Nicholls, author of One Day, in Electric Literature August 2020. Sophia, a young playwright, awaits her father’s verdict on her new show. A famous author whose novels haven’t aged as gracefully into the modern era as he might have hoped, he is completely unaware that the play centers around a vacation the two took years earlier to an island off Sicily, where he dictated to her a new book. Sophia’s play has been met with rave reviews, but her father has studiously avoided reading any of them. When the house lights dim however, he understands that his daughter has laid him bare, has used the events of their summer to create an incisive, witty, skewering critique of the attitudes and sexual mores of the men of his generation. Set through one staging of the play, The Hypocrite seamlessly and scorchingly shifts time and perspective, illuminating an argument between a father and his daughter that, with impeccable nuance, examines the fraught inheritances each generation is left to contend with and the struggle to nurture empathy in a world changing at lightning-speed.
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A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN TIME, THE DAILY MAIL, THE INDEPENDENT, GOOD HOUSEKEEPING AND THE ATLANTIC 'Like Edward St Aubyn and Anne Enright, Hamya is so good on generational conflict, the friction of family, and the damage done by charming but complacent men' DAVID NICHOLLS 'A slippery, excellent exploration of sexual politics, creative appropriation, and family dynamics . . . It lands its ending with all the force of a sharp knife hurled at a bullseye' VANITY FAIR Sicily, 2010. Sophia, on the cusp of adulthood, spends a long hot summer with her father, a successful author. Over the course of that holiday, their relationship will fracture. London, 2020. Sophia's father, now 61, sits in a large theatre, surrounded by strangers, watching his daughter's first play. A play that takes that Sicilian holiday as its subject and will force him to watch his purported crimes re-enacted. Set over the course of one climactic day, this is the story of a father and a daughter, of all that divides and binds them. 'Wickedly funny. A perfect novel' SARAH BERNSTEIN 'Brilliant . . . With a precision of language that ought to make Hamya's contemporaries quake and a tenderness you don't see coming' ATLANTIC

Pity

Pity

Andrew McMillan

2024

Fiction

A SUNDAY TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2024 A BBC MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2024 AN INDEPENDENT BEST FICTION TO READ IN 2024 A NEW STATESMAN FICTION HIGHLIGHT OF 2024 A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2024 AN i-D FICTION HIGHLIGHT TO BE EXCITED FOR IN 2024 LONGLISTED FOR THE SWANSEA UNIVERSITY DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE 2025 'A deeply felt and rich enactment of love, loneliness and personal triumph that leaves an indelible mark on modern Queer life' OCEAN VUONG The town was once a hub of industry. A place where men toiled underground in darkness, picking and shovelling in the dust and the sleck.

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A SUNDAY TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2024 A BBC MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2024 AN INDEPENDENT BEST FICTION TO READ IN 2024 A NEW STATESMAN FICTION HIGHLIGHT OF 2024 A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2024 AN i-D FICTION HIGHLIGHT TO BE EXCITED FOR IN 2024 LONGLISTED FOR THE SWANSEA UNIVERSITY DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE 2025 'A deeply felt and rich enactment of love, loneliness and personal triumph that leaves an indelible mark on modern Queer life' OCEAN VUONG The town was once a hub of industry. A place where men toiled underground in darkness, picking and shovelling in the dust and the sleck. It was dangerous and back-breaking work but it meant something. Once, the town provided, it was important; it had purpose. But what is it now? Brothers Alex and Brian have spent their whole life in the town where their father lived and his father, too. Now in his middle age and still reeling from the collapse of his personal life, Alex must reckon with a part of his identity he has long tried to conceal. His only child Simon has no memory of the mines. Now in his twenties and working in a call centre, he derives passion from his side hustle in sex work and his weekly drag gigs. Set across three generations of South Yorkshire mining family, Andrew McMillan’s magnificent debut novel is a lament for a lost way of life as well as a celebration of resilience and the possibility for change.

Monstrum

Monstrum

Lottie Mills

2024

Fiction

* From the winner of the BBC Young Writers' Award 2020 * What does it mean to be different in a world that values perfection, at any cost? 'Lottie's writing is a superb flight of the imagination' A.S. Byatt, author of Possession 'Haunting, luridly beautiful, and at times shockingly, deliciously gruesome’ Jenn Ashworth, author of Ghosted A 'Best Book for May 2024' according to Cosmopolitan From Lottie Mills, the winner of the BBC Young Writers' Award in 2020, comes this beautifully crafted collection of stories.

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* From the winner of the BBC Young Writers' Award 2020 * What does it mean to be different in a world that values perfection, at any cost? 'Lottie's writing is a superb flight of the imagination' A.S. Byatt, author of Possession 'Haunting, luridly beautiful, and at times shockingly, deliciously gruesome’ Jenn Ashworth, author of Ghosted A 'Best Book for May 2024' according to Cosmopolitan From Lottie Mills, the winner of the BBC Young Writers' Award in 2020, comes this beautifully crafted collection of stories. A father and daughter build a life for themselves on an isolated beach. But the outside world is pressing in. It's only a matter of time before their secret refuge is discovered. A young disabled woman opts to receive a perfect, pain-free body. Soon, however, she finds herself haunted by the one she cast off. A travelling circus master discovers the ideal addition to his cabinet of curiosities: 'damaged', 'grotesque', gifted. He plans to make her the star of his show; she plans to take her revenge. Monstrum captures the experience of characters excluded by a society that cannot accept their difference. Eerie, fantastical and hugely ambitious, this collection announces the arrival of an outstanding new literary voice. 'Lottie's stories reminded me of what matters' Claire Oshetsky 'Magical and haunting' Jan Carson

The Fertile Earth

The Fertile Earth

Ruthvika Rao

2024

Fiction

FINALIST FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION'S 2024 FIRST NOVEL PRIZE • An unforgettable story of love and resistance surrounding two young people born across social lines, set against a tumultuous political landscape in India. "[A] heart-wrenching tale of forbidden love" —THE WASHINGTON POST Vijaya and Sree are the daughters of the Deshmukhs of Irumi.

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FINALIST FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION'S 2024 FIRST NOVEL PRIZE • An unforgettable story of love and resistance surrounding two young people born across social lines, set against a tumultuous political landscape in India. "[A] heart-wrenching tale of forbidden love" —THE WASHINGTON POST Vijaya and Sree are the daughters of the Deshmukhs of Irumi. Hailing from a lineage of ancestral aristocrats, their family’s social status and power over villagers on their land is absolute. Krishna and Ranga, brothers, are the sons of a widowed servant in the Deshmukh household. When Vijaya and Krishna meet, they forge an intense bond that is beautiful and dangerous. But after an innocent attempt to hunt down a man-eating tiger in the jungle goes wrong, what happens between the two of them is disastrous, the consequences reverberating through their lives into young adulthood. Years later, when violent uprisings rip across the countryside and the Marxist, ultra-left Naxalite movement arrives in Irumi, Vijaya and Krishna are forced to navigate the insurmountable differences of land ownership and class warfare in a country that is burning from the inside out—while being irresistibly drawn back to each other, their childhood bond now full of possibilities neither of them are willing to admit. The Fertile Earth is a vast, ambitious debut that is equal parts historical, political, and human, with the enduring ties of love and family loyalty at its heart. Who can be loved? What are the costs of transgressions? How can justice be measured, and who will be alive to bear witness?
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LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE * SHORTLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION PRIZE 'Dazzling... Plot-packed, emotionally extravagant, dramatically intense' Guardian A sweeping story of forbidden love, of friendship and betrayal, power and revenge, set against the tumultuous political landscape of post-Independence India Vijaya and Sree are the daughters of the wealthy, landowning Deshmukh family, whose social status and power are absolute in the tiny village of Irumi. Krishna and Ranga are the sons of a widowed servant who works in the Deshmukh household. The four children should never have spoken, let alone forged a friendship. But the bonds they form are intense – and dangerous. When they are caught up in a devastating accident, the consequences ripple through their lives and send them scattering to different corners of India. Years later, when violent uprisings tear across the countryside, Vijaya and Krishna find themselves irresistibly drawn back to one another, despite the differences in their class and background. But this is not the India they once knew. Their country is changing, burning from the inside out. Irumi is no longer safe. 'A heart-wrenching tale of forbidden love.' Washington Post 'Rao's illuminating tale of moral corruption and redemptive love is beautifully crafted [and] heralds a terrific new talent.' Observer 'A spellbinding epic of land, class and family in post-independence India.' Aube Rey Lescure