Missouri Williams – författare

LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2026 ‘A novel to marvel at’ SOPHIE MACKINTOSH‘Astonishing’ MICHAEL MAGEE ‘Like Karl Ove Knausgaard at the end of the world’ SUNDAY TIMES The acclaimed author of The Doloriad returns with a darkly beautiful novel following a reclusive graduate in a campus love story like no other. In a famed but crumbling university city overrun by vegetation, where power is held in a fragile balance between the academics and a contingent of rogue gardeners, Agathe spends her days listlessly propping up the career of her fraudulent professor boss. One day, a campus scandal erupts: Adam, a contrarian and the pet student of her boss, comes into heated conflict with a rising young professor, with both men claiming discrimination.As the crisis consumes the university, Agathe’s boss instructs her to gather information by befriending Adam. Agathe soon finds herself both caught up in the events tearing the city apart and increasingly drawn towards the alluring student at the heart of it all. But can anyone be taken at their word in a struggle over the truth?Coursing with icy suspense and rendered with violent precision, The Vivisectors is a new kind of love story for a broken era and a novel of blazing spiritual reckoning. One of the most talked about books of 2026, as seen in the Sunday Times, Guardian, Times, Observer, BBC, New York Times, New Yorker and many more. ‘Genuinely experimental, relentlessly and rollickingly told’ BOOKER PRIZE JUDGES 2026‘Left me awestruck by its terrifying beauty’ HANNAH MURRAY, author of The Make-Believe ‘While there are echoes of Ottessa Moshfegh, Williams has a vision and energy all her own’GUARDIAN ‘Part love story, part ecological fable … a bleakly funny study of ideological certainty’ THE TIMES ‘Williams writes with a gothic angularity that puts her in a category of one. She swims in deep waters and surfaces now as a major writer for our age’ PAUL LYNCH, author of Prophet Song‘The anti-feel good hit of the year’ FERNANDO A. FLORES, author of Brother Brontë‘Wicked and beguiling’ AMY TWIGG, author of Spoilt Creatures

Winner of the Republic of Consciousness Prize 2023In the wake of a mysterious environmental cataclysm that has wiped out the rest of humankind, the Matriarch, her brother, and the family descended from their incest cling to existence on the edges of a ruined city. The Matriarch, ruling with fear and force, dreams of starting humanity over. Her children and the children they have with one another aren't so sure. Surrounded by the silent forest and the dead suburbs, they feel closer to the ruined world than to their parents.Nevertheless, they scavenge supplies, collect fuel, plant seeds, and attempt to cultivate the poisoned earth, brutalizing and caring for one another in equal measure. For entertainment, they watch old VHS tapes of a TV show called Get Aquinas in Here, in which a problem-solving medieval saint faces down a sequence of logical and ethical dilemmas. But one day the Matriarch dreams of another group of survivors, and sends away one of her daughters, the legless Dolores, as a marriage offering.When Dolores returns a few days later, her reappearance triggers the breakdown of Matriarch's fragile order and the control she wields over their sprawling family begins to weaken. As the children seize their chance to escape, the world of the television saint Aquinas and that of the family begin to melt together with terrible consequences.Told in extraordinary, intricate prose that moves with a life of its own, at times striking with the power of physical force, Missouri Williams's debut novel is a blazingly original document of depravity and salvation. Gothic and strange, moving and disquieting, and often hilarious, The Doloriad stares down, with narrowed eyes, humanity's unbreakable commitment to life.

LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2026 ‘A novel to marvel at’ SOPHIE MACKINTOSH‘Astonishing’ MICHAEL MAGEE ‘Like Karl Ove Knausgaard at the end of the world’ SUNDAY TIMES The acclaimed author of The Doloriad returns with a darkly beautiful novel following a reclusive graduate in a campus love story like no other. In a famed but crumbling university city overrun by vegetation, where power is held in a fragile balance between the academics and a contingent of rogue gardeners, Agathe spends her days listlessly propping up the career of her fraudulent professor boss. One day, a campus scandal erupts: Adam, a contrarian and the pet student of her boss, comes into heated conflict with a rising young professor, with both men claiming discrimination.As the crisis consumes the university, Agathe’s boss instructs her to gather information by befriending Adam. Agathe soon finds herself both caught up in the events tearing the city apart and increasingly drawn towards the alluring student at the heart of it all. But can anyone be taken at their word in a struggle over the truth?Coursing with icy suspense and rendered with violent precision, The Vivisectors is a new kind of love story for a broken era and a novel of blazing spiritual reckoning. One of the most talked about books of 2026, as seen in the Sunday Times, Guardian, Times, Observer, BBC, New York Times, New Yorker and many more. ‘Genuinely experimental, relentlessly and rollickingly told’ BOOKER PRIZE JUDGES 2026‘Left me awestruck by its terrifying beauty’ HANNAH MURRAY, author of The Make-Believe ‘While there are echoes of Ottessa Moshfegh, Williams has a vision and energy all her own’GUARDIAN ‘Part love story, part ecological fable … a bleakly funny study of ideological certainty’ THE TIMES ‘Williams writes with a gothic angularity that puts her in a category of one. She swims in deep waters and surfaces now as a major writer for our age’ PAUL LYNCH, author of Prophet Song‘The anti-feel good hit of the year’ FERNANDO A. FLORES, author of Brother Brontë‘Wicked and beguiling’ AMY TWIGG, author of Spoilt Creatures

LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2026 ‘A novel to marvel at’ SOPHIE MACKINTOSH‘Astonishing’ MICHAEL MAGEE ‘Like Karl Ove Knausgaard at the end of the world’ SUNDAY TIMES The acclaimed author of The Doloriad returns with a darkly beautiful novel following a reclusive graduate in a campus love story like no other. In a famed but crumbling university city overrun by vegetation, where power is held in a fragile balance between the academics and a contingent of rogue gardeners, Agathe spends her days listlessly propping up the career of her fraudulent professor boss. One day, a campus scandal erupts: Adam, a contrarian and the pet student of her boss, comes into heated conflict with a rising young professor, with both men claiming discrimination.As the crisis consumes the university, Agathe’s boss instructs her to gather information by befriending Adam. Agathe soon finds herself both caught up in the events tearing the city apart and increasingly drawn towards the alluring student at the heart of it all. But can anyone be taken at their word in a struggle over the truth?Coursing with icy suspense and rendered with violent precision, The Vivisectors is a new kind of love story for a broken era and a novel of blazing spiritual reckoning. One of the most talked about books of 2026, as seen in the Sunday Times, Guardian, Times, Observer, BBC, New York Times, New Yorker and many more. ‘Genuinely experimental, relentlessly and rollickingly told’ BOOKER PRIZE JUDGES 2026‘Left me awestruck by its terrifying beauty’ HANNAH MURRAY, author of The Make-Believe ‘While there are echoes of Ottessa Moshfegh, Williams has a vision and energy all her own’GUARDIAN ‘Part love story, part ecological fable … a bleakly funny study of ideological certainty’ THE TIMES ‘Williams writes with a gothic angularity that puts her in a category of one. She swims in deep waters and surfaces now as a major writer for our age’ PAUL LYNCH, author of Prophet Song‘The anti-feel good hit of the year’ FERNANDO A. FLORES, author of Brother Brontë‘Wicked and beguiling’ AMY TWIGG, author of Spoilt Creatures

LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2026 ‘A novel to marvel at’ SOPHIE MACKINTOSH‘Astonishing’ MICHAEL MAGEE ‘Like Karl Ove Knausgaard at the end of the world’ SUNDAY TIMES The acclaimed author of The Doloriad returns with a darkly beautiful novel following a reclusive graduate in a campus love story like no other. In a famed but crumbling university city overrun by vegetation, where power is held in a fragile balance between the academics and a contingent of rogue gardeners, Agathe spends her days listlessly propping up the career of her fraudulent professor boss. One day, a campus scandal erupts: Adam, a contrarian and the pet student of her boss, comes into heated conflict with a rising young professor, with both men claiming discrimination.As the crisis consumes the university, Agathe’s boss instructs her to gather information by befriending Adam. Agathe soon finds herself both caught up in the events tearing the city apart and increasingly drawn towards the alluring student at the heart of it all. But can anyone be taken at their word in a struggle over the truth?Coursing with icy suspense and rendered with violent precision, The Vivisectors is a new kind of love story for a broken era and a novel of blazing spiritual reckoning. One of the most talked about books of 2026, as seen in the Sunday Times, Guardian, Times, Observer, BBC, New York Times, New Yorker and many more. ‘Genuinely experimental, relentlessly and rollickingly told’ BOOKER PRIZE JUDGES 2026‘Left me awestruck by its terrifying beauty’ HANNAH MURRAY, author of The Make-Believe ‘While there are echoes of Ottessa Moshfegh, Williams has a vision and energy all her own’GUARDIAN ‘Part love story, part ecological fable … a bleakly funny study of ideological certainty’ THE TIMES ‘Williams writes with a gothic angularity that puts her in a category of one. She swims in deep waters and surfaces now as a major writer for our age’ PAUL LYNCH, author of Prophet Song‘The anti-feel good hit of the year’ FERNANDO A. FLORES, author of Brother Brontë‘Wicked and beguiling’ AMY TWIGG, author of Spoilt Creatures