Spent Light

Lara Pawson lives in east London. She is the author of This Is the Place to Be (CBe, 2016) and In the Name of the People: Angola’s Forgotten Massacre (IB Tauris, 2014).

‘Reading Pawson you realise how obedient most writing is, constrained by squeamishness or protocol … Lara Pawson’s writing is brilliant, unnerving and shockingly alive.’ – Miranda France, Times Literary Supplement‘I’m flabbergasted by the naked determination on show here, not to say the talent. Page by page, image by image, association by association, Lara Pawson develops a picture of the world that you won’t be offered anywhere else: stark, unremitting, brilliantly formed and written.’  – M. John Harrison‘A shocking book. Lara Pawson’s merciless and exquisite prose adorns everyday objects with the violence of history – the savage comedy by which living creatures have become broken, petrified things. I will never look at a toaster or a timer, a toenail or a squirrel, the same way again.’ – Merve Emre‘A narrative that presents as fragmentary, bordering on stream-of-consciousness, coheres into something deeply affecting – the accumulation of moments of pain, beauty, and epiphany refracted through quotidian things: a timer, a toilet, a toaster, a squirrel, a toenail … Stark, shocking imagery is tempered by the gentle sense of love that pervades the narrative. Pawson confronts horrors, bodily and otherwise, to offer perspective on a relationship […] that offers stability, intellectual companionship, and tenderness.’  – Andrew Clarke, Irish Times‘Pawson has a facility for sensory detail and a bracing candour about her sometimes disturbing desires … Violence is encoded everywhere … But there is also humour and love in this remarkable book, and an appreciation of the life in everything.’  – Tom Gatti, New Statesman