How we come in, and how we go out, sex and death: these are the governing drives, our two greatest themes.
In this provocative, haunting and sexy collection of short stories, a group of acclaimed writers from across the globe probe the nature of, and connection between, two of the most powerful, exhilarating and terrifying forces that define and shape the human experience: sex and death.
Here we see the events that mark the lives of the young and old, of men and women, of those meeting only briefly and of others reflecting on shared pasts. In these intense, often traumatic and sometimes humorous interactions, we are confronted not just with our urges and anxieties, but with the very limits of mortality and morbidity.
Honest, compassionate and psychologically astute, the stories in Sex & Death are daring in their approaches to the form and relentless in their pursuit of what it is to be human.
Featuring stories by:
Kevin Barry
Lynn Coady
Ceridwen Dovey
Robert Drewe
Damon Galgut
Petina Gappah
Sarah Hall
Peter Hobbs
Yiyun Li
Alexander MacLeod
Ben Marcus
Jon McGregor
Guadalupe Nettel
Courttia Newland
Taiye Selasi
Ali Smith
Wells Tower
Alan Warner
Claire Vaye Watkins
Clare Wigfall
Sarah Hall was born in Cumbria in 1974. She received a BA from Aberystwyth University, Wales, and a MLitt in Creative Writing from St Andrews, Scotland. She is the author of Haweswater, which won the 2003 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel, a Society of Authors Betty Trask Award, and a Lakeland Book of the Year prize.
In 2004, her second novel, The Electric Michelangelo, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Eurasia region), and the Prix Femina Etranger, and was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. Her third novel, The Carhullan Army, (Daughters of the North, USA) was published in 2007, and won the 2006/07 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the James Tiptree Jr. Award, a Lakeland Book of the Year prize, was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction, and long-listed for the Dublin IMPAC Award. The Carhullan Army was listed as one of The Times 100 Best Books of the Decade.
Her fourth novel, How To Paint A Dead Man, was published in 2009 and was longlisted for the Man Booker prize and won the Portico Prize for Fiction 2010. The Wolf Border, her fifth novel, was published in 2015, to much critical acclaim, and was shortlisted for The Southbank Sky Arts Awards and the James Tate Memorial Black prize, and won the 2015 Cumbria Life Culture Awards 'Writer of the Year' prize.
Her first collection of short stories, titled The Beautiful Indifference, was published by Faber & Faber in November 2011. The Beautiful Indifference won the Portico Prize for Fiction 2012 and the Edge Hill short story prize, it was also short-listed for the Frank O'Connor Prize. Her second collection, Madame Zero, will be published in 2017. The lead story, 'Mrs Fox', won the BBC National Short Story Award in 2013. Her work has been translated into more than a dozen languages.
Sarah Hall is an honorary fellow of Aberystwyth University and the University of Cumbria, and a fellow of the Civitella Ranieri Foundation (2007). She is a member of the Royal Society of Literature. She has judged a number of prestigious literary awards and prizes. She is a recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters EM Forster Award. She has tutored for the Faber Academy, The Guardian, the Arvon Foundation, and has taught creative writing in a variety of establishments in the UK and abroad. Sarah currently lives in Norwich, Norfolk.
Peter Hobbs is the author of two novels,
The Short Day Dying and
In The Orchard, The Swallows, as well as a collection of short stories,
I Could Ride All Day in My Cool Blue Train. His work has won a Betty Trask Award, and been shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the John Lewellyn Rhys Prize and the Whitbread First Novel Award. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and a writer-in-residence for the schools literacy charity, First Story.
Kevin Barry is the author of the story collections
'Dark Lies The Island' and
'There Are Little Kingdoms' and the novel '
City Of Bohane'. He has been awarded the
Sunday Times EFG Short Story Prize, the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and the Authors Club Best First Novel Award, and has been shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Prize and the Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year. His stories have appeared in the
New Yorker, and many other journals and anthologies.
