Reviews
A dazzling work of speculative fiction, Fagan presents a crazy, fast, funny and dark tale meditating on the nature of language
The Bookseller
About the Book
Words are disappearing from the contemporary world. So much so that an Independent Bureau of Lost Words has been created in a discrete location on Scotland’s East Coast, run by a new Curator of Lost Words, Mary Shelley. What is the role being played by the scientist and expert in words, meanings and monsters, Victor Frankenstein? What have his experiments in AI and large language models unleashed? And is language itself reborn as Frankenstein’s monster?
Blending Mary Shelley’s classic story into a work of dazzling speculative fiction, Jenni Fagan presents a crazy, fast, funny and dark tale that drags readers into the belly of what language actually is and is not, and how it is used by us and against us.
The Author
Jenni Fagan
Dr Jenni Fagan is an award-winning poet, novelist and screenwriter. After the publication of her debut novel, The Panopticon, Jenni was selected as one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists. She has been on lists including the Desmond Elliott Prize, James Tait Black, Sunday Times Short Story Prize and the BBC International Story Prize. The Sunlight Pilgrims saw her win Scottish Author of the Year at the Herald Culture Awards. Her third novel Luckenbooth was praised in The New York Times Book Review, who named her The Patron Saint of Literary Street Urchins. In 2022, Polygon published her novel, Hex, and The Bone Library, a poetry collection written during her time as a Writer in Residence at the Dick Vet Bone Library. Her memoir Ootlin published in 2024, alongside her seventh poetry collection A Swan's Neck on the Butcher's Block. Fagan recently wrote two hundred poems for a collectors book called Heart of the Spirit, celebrating 200 years of The Macallan whisky.
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Paperback | Pub: 05 Sep 2024£10.99
A scintillating collection from one of Scotland’s most original voices. Jenni Fagan converses with the poets of the past; through them, she communes with demons and explores a world that is continually at odds with itself. The poet voyages, as...
