Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again: Winner of the Goldsmiths Prize 2020

A novel that explores the boundaries of the novel form, combining mystery, conspiracy theory, and romance. Set in a decaying London and the Midlands, it follows Shaw, who has a breakdown and gets involved in a conspiracy theory, and Victoria, who is renovating her mother's house. The sunken lands are rising up again, unnoticed in the shadows around them.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 272 pages
Publication date: 15 April 2021
Publisher: Orion Publishing Co

Winner of the Goldsmiths Prize 2020


A New Statesman Book of the Year


A mesmerising, mysterious book.


Haunting. Worrying. Beautiful.


Russell T. Davis


Brilliantly unsettling.


Olivia Laing


A magificent book.


Neil Gaiman


An extraordinary experience.


William Gibson


Winner of the Goldsmiths Prize 2020, this is fiction that pushes the boundaries of the novel form.


Shaw had a breakdown, but he's getting himself back together. He has a single room, a job on a decaying London barge, and an on-off affair with a doctor's daughter called Victoria, who claims to have seen her first corpse at age thirteen.


It's not ideal, but it's a life. Or it would be if Shaw hadn't got himself involved in a conspiracy theory that, on dark nights by the river, seems less and less theoretical...


Meanwhile, Victoria is up in the Midlands, renovating her dead mother's house, trying to make new friends. But what, exactly, happened to her mother? Why has the local waitress disappeared into a shallow pool in a field behind the house? And why is the town so obsessed with that old Victorian morality tale, The Water Babies?


As Shaw and Victoria struggle to maintain their relationship, the sunken lands are rising up again, unnoticed in the shadows around them.

Weight: 240g
Dimension: 130 x 196 x 32 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780575096363