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Fen

Fen

Summary


Revisit the haunting debut short story collection from the Booker-shortlisted author of Everything Under.

'Full of unabashedly, refreshingly angry women... In a year that made me furious, Daisy Johnson’s Fen was a howl I didn’t know I needed' Celeste Ng


The Fen is a liminal land. Real people live their lives here. They wrestle with sex and desire, with everyday routine. But the wild is always close at hand, ready to erupt.

This is a place where animals and people commingle and fuse, where curious metamorphoses take place, where myth and dark magic still linger. So here a teenager may starve herself into the shape of an eel. A house might fall in love with a girl. A woman might give birth to a, well, what?


'Instant classic...a bold, take-no-prisoners collection situated somewhere between Angela Carter and Deborah Levy' Jeff VanderMeer

Reviews

  • Daisy Johnson’s story collection Fen was unanimously beloved... firmly situating her among the UK’s most exciting new voices.
    Marta Bausells, Elle

About the author

Daisy Johnson

Daisy Johnson was born in 1990. Her debut short-story collection, Fen, was published in 2016. In 2018 she became the youngest author ever to be shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize with her debut novel Everything Under. She is the winner of the Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Prize, A. M. Heath Prize and Edge Hill Short Story Prize. Her debut play, Viola’s Room, was produced in 2024 by the immersive theatre company Punchdrunk. She currently lives in Oxford by the river.
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