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Seed by Joanna Walsh

Seed

'By resisting representational narrative, this book works like a 3D printer. Language is the raw material, laid down layer by layer, until the solid object of the story is formed. Non-conformist, hypnotic, incantatory, and satisfyingly strange.' Jeanette Winterson

'Seed is Joanna Walsh's best book, and that's saying something.' Isabel Waidner, author of Sterling Karat Gold.

'Seed is a marvel. Each page Joanna Walsh writes shines with such vividness and depth, painting a distinct vision that compels the reader to gaze again, to gaze ever deeper.' Doireann Ní Ghríofa, author of A Ghost in the Throat

'More than any other book I have ever read, Seed captures the experience of girlhood for me: the messiness, confusion and glory. Not hyperbole: just what I feel.' Wendy Erskine

COMING 3 JUNE 2021

Pre-order for £13.50, thereafter £14.99.
Pre-orders include a limited edition postcard of Joanna's art.

Paperback Edition

PRICE: £14.99 (or pre-order for £13.50)
ISBN: 978-1-8381081-0-6
DIMENSIONS: 237 x 172 x 200mm
PAGES: 200
Illustrated B&W
Printed on Munken Premium White 90gsm Paper with French Fold Jacket.

Limited Edition Set

PRICE: £45
ISBN: 978-1-8381081-1-3
Illustrated B&W
The limited edition of Seed is presented in a case and includes the paperback edition along with seven illustrated chapbooks. Each chapbook contains a disentangled narrative vine from the novel. The chapbooks are saddle stitched. The author has created original artwork to accompany the text. Three limited edition prints will be included in each set.

You can pre-order a limited edition from No Alibis Bookshop

Play Joanna's 'spontaneous-looking generative artwork inspired by fractal natural forms' Thicket

Pre-order now

(Available Thursday 3rd June 2021)

Buy from No Alibis bookshop

Synopsis

A queer non-coming-out story about sex, adolescence, class, fear and contagion in the 1980s: a lush, sensual experimental novel with a hidden linguistic constraint.

Seed's narrator is on the threshold of adulthood, living in an English valley in the late 1980s when life is overshadowed by fears of nuclear contagion, AIDS and CJD. Composed in narrative threads of poetic prose, Seed explores universal themes of restriction and desire, delving deep into the narrator's subjective consciousness and demonstrating the polyphonic discourse - fashion magazines, art, public health advice - and relationships that shape her becoming.

This project is supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland's National Lottery Fund.

Praise for Seed interactive app (Visual Editions, 2017):

'Understatedly poised and laconically lyrical, Seed has an elegiac quality akin to prose poetry.'
Houman Barekat, The Irish Times

'Drenched in colour, sound and scent.'
Thomas MacMullan, The Times Literary Supplement

'A work of subtle craft and layers of quiet, intricate beauty.'
Julian Hanna, 3:AM Magazine

'As a bildungsroman the book also depicts wonderfully, and at times comically, the difficulty of learning to express oneself.'
Thea Havlin, Review 31

About Joanna Walsh

Joanna Walsh is a multidisciplinary writer for print, digital and performance. The author of seven books, she also works as a critic, editor and teacher. She is a UK Arts Foundation fellow, and the founder of #readwomen, described by the New York Times as 'a rallying cry for equal treatment for women writers'.

Praise for Joanna Walsh

'Joanna Walsh is fast becoming one of our most important writers.' Deborah Levy

'Joanna Walsh's stories have earned praise from I Love Dick author Chris Kraus, practically the bat signal for experimental-fiction dabblers.' Elle Magazine

'The interplay between meticulousness and uncertainty in Joanna Walsh’s writing turns the world on its head with such poignancy and lightness of touch one feels one is gazing at a snow- globe out of season. Mesmerising and unsettling.' Claire-Louise Bennett

'I can’t stop quoting Walsh because her sentences are so excellent, and because all of her stories are constructed solely from excellent sentences.' Jeff VanderMeer, Electric Literature

'Walsh’s writing has intellectual rigour and bags of formal bravery.'
Melissa Harrison, The Financial Times

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