Sarah Hall

An electrifying novel of mortality, passion, and human connection, set against the backdrop of a deadly global virus--from the "astonishing, miraculous" (Daisy Johnson) Man Booker-nominated writer. You were the last one here, before I closed the door of Burntcoat. Before we all closed our doors... In an unnamed British city, the virus is spreading, and like everyone else, the celebrated sculptor Edith Harkness retreats inside. She isolates herself in her immense studio, Burntcoat, with Halit, the lover she barely knows. As life outside changes irreparably, inside Burntcoat Edith and Halit find themselves changed as well: by the histories and responsibilities each carries and bears, by the fears and dangers of the world outside, and by the progressions of their new relationship. And Burntcoat will be transformed too, into a new and feverish world, a place in which Edith comes to an understanding of how we survive the impossible--and what is left after we have. A sharp and stunning novel of art and ambition, mortality and connection, Burntcoat is a major work from "one of our most influential short story writers" (Guardian). It is an intimate and vital examination of how and why we create--make art, form relationships, build a life--and an urgent exploration of an unprecedented crisis, the repercussions of which are still years in the learning.

Burntcoat

In her stunning novel, Hall imagines a new dystopia set in the not-too-distant future. England is in a state of environmental crisis and economic collapse. There has been a census, and all citizens have been herded into urban centers. Reproduction has become a lottery, with contraceptive coils fitted to every female of childbearing age. A girl who will become known only as "Sister" escapes the confines of her repressive marriage to find an isolated group of women living as "un-officials" in Carhullan, a remote northern farm, where she must find out whether she has it in herself to become a rebel fighter. Provocative and timely, Daughters of the North poses questions about the lengths women will go to resist their oppressors, and under what circumstances might an ordinary person become a terrorist.

A Novel

Daughters of the North

From the award-winning author of The Electric Michelangelo, one of the most decorated young British writers working today, comes a literary masterpiece: a breathtaking work that beautifully and provocatively surveys the frontiers of the human spirit and our animal drives. For almost a decade, zoologist Rachel Caine has lived a solitary existence far from her estranged family in England, monitoring wolves in a remote section of Idaho as part of a wildlife recovery program. But a surprising phone call takes her back to the peat and wet light of the Lake District where she grew up. The eccentric Earl of Annerdale has a controversial scheme to reintroduce the Grey Wolf to the English countryside, and he wants Rachel to spearhead the project. Though she’s skeptical, the earl’s lands are close to the village where she grew up, and where her aging mother now lives. While the earl’s plan harks back to an ancient idyll of untamed British wilderness, Rachel must contend with modern-day realities—health and safety issues, public anger and fear, cynical political interests. But the return of the Grey unexpectedly sparks her own regeneration. Exploring the fundamental nature of wilderness and wildness, The Wolf Border illuminates both our animal nature and humanity: sex, love, conflict, and the desire to find answers to the question of our existence—the emotions, desires, and needs that rule our lives.

The Wolf Border

Cy Parks is the Electric Michelangelo, an artist of extraordinary gifts whose medium happens to be the pliant, shifting canvas of the human body. Fleeing his mother's legacy -- a consumptives' hotel in a fading English seaside resort -- Cy reinvents himself in the incandescent honky-tonk of Coney Island in its heyday between the two world wars. Amid the carnival decadence of freak shows and roller coasters, enchanters and enigmas, scam artists and marks, Cy will find his muse: an enigmatic circus beauty who surrenders her body to his work, but whose soul tantalizingly eludes him. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

The Electric Michelangelo

From one of the most accomplished British writers working today, the Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Wolf Border, comes a unique and arresting collection of short fiction that is both disturbing and dazzling. Sarah Hall has been hailed as "one of the most significant and exciting of Britain’s young novelists" (The Guardian), a writer whose "intelligence and ambition are thrilling to behold" (BookForum). Her work has been acclaimed as "amazing . . . terrific and original" (Washington Post). In this collection of nine works of short fiction, she uses her piercing insight to plumb the depth of the female experience and the human soul. A husband’s wife transforms into a vulpine in "Mrs. Fox," winner of the BBC Short Story Prize. In "Case Study 2, " A social worker struggles with a foster child raised in a commune. A new mother runs into an old lover in "Luxury Hour." In incandescent prose, full of rich observations and striking clarity, Hall has composed nine wholly original pieces—works of fiction that will resonate long after the final page is turned.

9 Stories

Madame Zero

'No one writes stories the way Hall does and quite possibly no one ever will. Astonishing, miraculous, a gift.' Daisy Johnson WINNER OF THE BBC NATIONAL SHORT STORY AWARD WINNER OF AN O.HENRY PRIZE FOR SHORT FICTION The seven stories of Sudden Traveller immerse us anew in one of the most distinctive literary imaginations. In Turkish forests or rain-drenched Cumbrian villages, characters walk, drive, dream and fly, trying to reconcile themselves with their journey through life and death. A woman fitted with life-changing technology returns to the site of her strongest memories; a man repatriated in the near east hears the name of an old love called and must unpack history's suitcase; and from the new world-waves of female anger and resistance, a mythical creature evolves. Radical, charged with a transformative creative power, each of these stories opens channels in the human mind and spirit, as Sarah Hall once more invites the reader to stand at the very edge of our possible selves. 'Hall's stories are extraordinary. Magical. I never know where the next one will take me, but I know it will be unexpected, memorable, and built from language that crackles with energy.' Chris Power Praise for Madame Zero: 'So fearsomely excellent it almost hurt to read. Truly the best collection I've come across in a decade.' Wells Tower 'These stories leave the reader unsettled, thrilled, and changed ... Marvellous.' Jon McGregor 'I can't praise it highly enough.' David Mitchell 'Astonishing: humane yet otherworldly, disturbing, sexy and strange. The woman is a genius.' Jessie Burton 'Hall's stories are vixen-shaped: urban and rural, feral and natural, female and stinky, beautiful and tough ... Exceptional, compelling, frightening and authentic.' Guardian 'Stunning ... Each of these brilliant stories is a leap into a dark, mysterious void that ultimately reveals glittering terrors therein.' Independent 'An edgy, sensuous, and immediate writer of striking power and grace.' Sunday Times

Sudden Traveller

An electrifying story of passion, connection and transformation from 'a writer of show-stopping genius' (Guardian). 'Dark and brilliant.' SARAH MOSS 'A masterpience.' DAISY JOHNSON 'Extraordinary.' SARAH PERRY 'Hall has set a bar . . . Finely wrought, intellecutally brave and emotionally honest.' THE SCOTSMAN In the bedroom above her immense studio at Burntcoat, the celebrated sculptor Edith Harkness is making her final preparations. The symptoms are well known: her life will draw to an end in the coming days. Downstairs, the studio is a crucible glowing with memories and desire. It was here, when the first lockdown came, that she brought Halit. The lover she barely knew. A presence from another culture. A doorway into a new and feverish world. 'Sarah Hall makes language shimmer and burn . . . One of the finest writers at work today.' DAMON GALGUT 'Wonderful . . . The writing goes down smoking hot onto the page.' ANDREW MILLER 'I can think of no other British writer whose talent so consistently thrills, surprises and staggers . . . With Burntcoat she has solidified her status as the literary shining light we lesser souls aspire to.' BENJAMIN MYERS

Winner of the Portico Prize Winner of the Edge Hill University Short Story Prize Short-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award Sarah Hall has been hailed as "one of the most significant and exciting of Britain's young novelists" (The Guardian). Now, in this collection of short fiction published in England to phenomenal praise, she has created a work at once provocative and mesmerizing.

Stories

The Beautiful Indifference

Walking ahead of him on the heath, his wife turns to look at him over her shoulder, 'Topaz eyes glinting. Scorched face. Vixen.' In language harvested from nature, Sarah Hall tells a story of metamorphosis, of wildness and fecundity, and of a man reaching for reason, who cannot let go of the creature he loves.

Mrs Fox

Sandy Hall

Lea and Gabe are in the same creative writing class. They get the same pop-culture references, order the same Chinese food and hang out in the same places. Unfortunately, Lea is reserved, Gabe has issues, and despite their initial mutual crush it looks like they are never going to work things out.But somehow, even when nothing is going on, something is happening between them, and everyone can see it. Their creative-writing teacher pushes them together. The baristas at the local Starbucks watch their relationship like a TV show. Their bus driver tells his wife about them. The waitress at the diner automatically seats them together. Now they just need to realize that they're meant for each other, and start falling in love . . . This irresistible romance is told by all the people who are willing love to blossom in a unique multi-voice narrative structure. It is perfect for fans of Rainbow Rowell and John Green.

A Little Something Different

Peter Hobbs

Sex and Death

Sarah Hall is an exquisite chronicler of landscapes - rural, industrial, psychological - and these haunting stories reveal a writer at the peak of her powers. Rich in the mythic symbolism of wilderness and wasteland, these tales blur the natural and urban, mundane and surreal, human and animal. Written in Hall's lyrical prose, this uncannily disturbing collection glitters with poetic and erotic imagery. Marked by a fascination with the intimacy of nature - and the nature of intimacy - 'Madame Zero' is a stunning new collection from an author twice nominated for the Booker Prize

Italy in the early 1960s: a dying painter considers the sacrifices and losses that have made him an enigma, both to strangers and those closest to him. He begins his last life painting, using the same objects he has painted obsessively for his entire career - a small group of bottles. In Cumbria 30 years later, a landscape artist - and admirer of the Italian recluse - finds himself trapped in the extreme terrain that has made him famous. And in present-day London, his daughter, an art curator struggling with the sudden loss of her twin brother while trying to curate an exhibition about the lives of the twentieth-century European masters, is drawn into a world of darkness and sexual abandon. Covering half a century, this is a luminous and searching novel, and Hall's most accomplished work to date.

How to Paint a Dead Man

Eley Williams

Caleb Azumah Nelson

Jan Carson

Jack Houston

A young woman’s birthday party is disturbed by the vision of a homeless man sleeping under an arrangement of mocking fruit... A late-night text conversation goes awry when a forwarded link to a live feed of gathering walruses doesn’t have its intended effect... A woman hopes a pending announcement to her in-laws will finally give her husband the attention he craves... The stories shortlisted for the 2020 BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University demonstrate how a single moment might become momentous; how a small encounter or exchange can irreversibly change the way others see you, or the way you see yourself. From the struggles of two women trapped by joblessness and addiction to the hopes of two teenage brothers embarking on a new life without the protection of their parents, these stories show us what happens when we fail to relate to each other as well as the refuge that belonging affords.Now celebrating its fifteenth year, the BBC National Short Story Award is one of the most prestigious for a single short story, with the winning writer receiving £15,000, and the four further shortlisted authors £600 each. The BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University was established to raise the profile of the short form and the writers shortlisted for this year’s award join distinguished alumni such as Zadie Smith, Lionel Shriver, Rose Tremain, William Trevor, Sarah Hall and Mark Haddon. As well as rewarding the most renowned short story writers, the Award has raised the profile of new writers including Ingrid Persaud, Jo Lloyd, K J Orr, Julian Gough, Cynan Jones and Clare Wigfall. The shortlist will be announced on the 11th September 2020, with the winner to be announced live on BBC Radio 4 Front Row in October.

The BBC National Short Story Award 2020

A Handmaid's Tale for our times, this exhilarating novel pits political oppression against the will to survive, in a nightmarishly believable vision of Britain in the near future. Following its union with the United States and a series of disastrous foreign wars, Britain is in the grip of a severe crisis; the country is now under the control of The Authority. But up in the far north of Cumbria, Jackie and a group of fellow rebel women have escaped The Authority's repressive regime and formed their own militia. Sister, brought to breaking point by the restrictions imposed on her own life, decides to join them. Though her journey is frightening and dangerous, she believes her struggle will soon be over. But Jackie's single-minded vision for the army means that Sister must decide all over again what freedom is, and whether she is willing to fight for it.

The Carhullan Army

Sex and death are two of the most powerful, exhilarating and terrifying forces that define and shape the human experience. In this provocative and haunting collection of short stories edited by two masters of the form, some of today's most compelling writers from around the globe - including Kevin Barry, Yiyun Li, Ben Marcus, Jon McGregor, Taiye Selasi and Ali Smith - explore these challenging themes with honesty, empathy and psychological acuity, in stories that are utterly dazzling.

Jon McGregor

Jessie Greengrass

"Our first book, Reverse Engineering, is a collection of seven of the best modern short stories, each followed by a discussion with the writer – on their instincts, processes and ideas on writing." -- Publisher website

Reverse Engineering

The Grotesques

"What else is there?" -- Alice Munro, on why so much of her work deals with the twin themes of sex and death. The drive for life -- for survival and reproduction -- and the drive for death -- for violence and self-destruction -- are the two dominant, instinctive urges of human behaviour. These conflicting compulsions, characterized by Freud as Eros and Thanatos, are also the central themes of great literature. In Sex and Death, some of today's most compelling writers from around the globe -- Kevin Barry, Lynn Coady, Robert Drewe, Ceridwen Dovey, Damon Galgut, Petina Gappah, Sarah Hall, Peter Hobbs, Yiyun Li, Alexander MacLeod, Ben Marcus, Jon McGregor, Guadalupe Nettel, Courttia Newland, Taiye Selassie, Ali Smith, Wells Tower, Alan Warner, Claire Vaye Watkins, Clare Wigfall -- explore these challenging themes with honesty, psychological acuity, brutality, tenderness, and empathy, in stories that are illuminating, disquieting, funny, and utterly dazzling.

Sarah Hall

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