Daisy Lafarge – författare

The critically acclaimed debut novel from the T.S. Eliot Prize-shortlisted poet--Frances is a graduate student spending a summer volunteering in rural France, in the hope that tending vegetables and harvesting honey will distract her from a scandal that drove her out of Paris, her research unfinished and her sense of self unmoored.At the eco-farm Noa Noa, she comes under the influence of its charismatic and domineering owner, Paul. As his hold over her tightens and her plans come unstuck, she finds herself entangled in a strange, uneven relationship. On a fraught road trip across the South of France, both are forced to reckon with uncomfortable truths. A compelling and perturbing story of power, passivity and the cage of being 'good', Paul introduces a novelist of extraordinary perspicacity and lyricism.

Eleven year old Astralabe's windswept days stretch by. Afternoons at the Abbey, trying to concentrate on his lessons; hours mesmerised by the lilac sky mirrored in the stingers washed up at his feet; cool evenings spent absorbing the whisperings of the village.Astralabe is alone. The infamous child of forbidden love, Abelard and Heloise, his parents as dazzling and distant as the stars. Astralabe's origins separate him from the residents of Abbey just as his learning breeds suspicion among the villagers. The boy devotes every spare moment to earning his father Abelard's good opinion. Letters and treatises - his texts of the world - sealed with hope, sent seemingly into the void.But those around him have other concerns: lambs born mangled, healthy young women fail. Discontent in the village blooms, and as the tension between the villagers and monks increases, inquisitive Astralabe begins to see what so many around him cannot.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE TS ELIOT PRIZE FOR POETRY 2020WINNER OF THE SCOTTISH BOOK AWARDS' POETRY BOOK OF THE YEARA POETRY BOOK SOCIETY RECOMMENDATIONSHORTLISTED FOR THE JOHN POLLARD FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL POETRY PRIZE"Whip-smart, sonically gorgeous" - Rae Armantrout, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning VersedWhen Louis Pasteur observed the process of fermentation, he noted that, while most organisms perished from lack of oxygen, some were able to thrive as 'life without air'. In this capricious, dreamlike collection, characters and scenes traverse states of airlessness, from suffocating relationships and institutions, to toxic environments and ecstatic asphyxiations. Both compassionate and ecologically nuanced, this innovative collection bridges poetry and prose to interrogate the conditions necessary for survival.