Seagull Books London Ltd

A humorous and deeply human short story collection that celebrates outsiders, dreamers, and the queer. The award-winning Slovak writer Barbora Hr?nová's short stories paint an intimate portrait of people searching for happiness in a world that feels increasingly unstable and uncertain. Across the eight stories in this volume, we meet a rich cast of ordinary yet unconventional people trying to find their place in a society that often prefers conformity over authenticity. Taking us to such settings as a bustling cafe, a small village shack, a rental flat, or a psychiatric ward, Hr?nová captures the texture of everyday life with piercing accuracy and a fresh, original voice. Unicorns is a remarkable debut that resonates across generations. With compassion, wit, and an eye for detail, it shows us that weirdness isn't rare-it's a universal human experience.

These newly translated stories chart the making of a literary provocateur, one experiment and ethical dilemma at a time. Before Thomas Bernhard became one of the most provocative voices in modern literature, he was a young writer testing the limits of form and subject. Of Seven Fir Trees and the Snow offers an unprecedented look at his evolution, from his earliest published work at nineteen to the emergence of his unmistakable voice. Translated into English for the first time, in these stories, Bernhard moves from stark naturalism to fairy-tale simplicity to the eerie, stripped-down surrealism reminiscent of science fiction. At the same time, he grapples with the fundamental ethical questions that would define his career: how does one navigate personal autonomy in a world fractured by the upheavals of the twentieth century? Selected and arranged in chronological order by Douglas Robertson, this collection traces Bernhard’s transformation from an ambitious chronicler of Austrian rural life to a writer in dialogue with the broader currents of world literature. A rare glimpse into the making of a literary icon, this volume is essential reading for both longtime admirers and those discovering Bernhard’s singular genius for the first time.

In a forest where every step is familiar, Sára searches for mushrooms—but what she unearths instead are the long-buried truths of her own life. Nestled deep in the Bohemian Forest, Sára’s world is quiet and bound to the rhythms of nature. She has wandered the same wooded trails for seven years, filling her basket with mushrooms, her pockets with memories, and her thoughts with the past she cannot quite escape. The solitude suits her—until the death of her mother forces her to confront the tangled roots of family and the wounds that never fully healed. As Sára meticulously sorts through chanterelles and boletes, she also sorts through childhood recollections and the uneasy inheritance of trauma. The forest offers refuge, but it also holds secrets, and as the seasons shift, so does Sára’s understanding of herself and the complicated bonds that tether her to the world. With melodic prose and an acute sensitivity to how landscapes shape lives, Viktorie Hanišová crafts a novel of quiet intensity and deep introspection. The Mushroom Gatherer is a haunting meditation on loss and the delicate balance between isolation and connection, perfect for readers drawn to atmospheric fiction.

A gripping tale of education, violence, and hope, in which one man's dream for a better future collides with a community on the edge of transformation. Set in 1842, this novel foregrounds a Haiti that is grappling with the weight of an onerous debt imposed by France, forcing its citizens to pay reparations to French colonists in exchange for diplomatic recognition of the first Black republic of the Americas. In the town of Boën, a prosperous notary, Ludovic Possible, decides to take a bold step to secure the future of his community. He opens a schoolhouse where local children can learn both artisanal skills and the essential ability to read and write. For Ludovic, education represents the best chance for the people of Boën to rise above their hardships and build a prosperous future—especially for Aida, a quiet and enigmatic girl whose mother’s marvelous stories captivate him. The tranquility of Boën is soon shattered, however, by a series of duels that pit families, neighbors, and even animals against each other. As tensions rise, Ludovic’s vision for a better future is threatened by the escalating violence. In Duels, Néhémy Pierre-Dahomey introduces readers to a rich and unforgettable cast of characters—Aida, Ludovic, Balthazar Possible, Pépé the Tempest, and many others—who find themselves at the crossroads of a nation on the brink of transformative change.

A poetic journey through five decades of Karnataka’s history, this collection brings K. S. Nisar Ahmed’s timeless verses to a new audience. K. S. Nisar Ahmed captured the soul of Karnataka and the pulse of everyday life in verses that are as provocative as they are deeply lyrical. Every Day a Celebration gathers some of his finest poems, spanning over five decades, and introduces his voice to a wider audience through Roopa Pai’s sensitive translation. Steeped in both Romantic and Modernist traditions, his work fluidly interweaves Sanskrit and Urdu influences, blending intellectual rigor with heartfelt emotion. Whether reflecting on the burdens of history or simply delighting in life’s fleeting joys, his words remain strikingly relevant across generations. With this landmark translation, English readers can now experience the brilliance of one of Kannada’s most beloved poets—a voice that continues to resonate with urgency and humanity.

A tale of mercenaries and myths, set amid the political turmoil of Bengal. In the largely undocumented sphere of political violence in eastern India, Qadir the Spider is a mythological killer and casanova, known for the various assassinations and liaisons he carries out across the region. His oldest son Rahim is the latest entry to the field. A 13-year-old killer, the boy bides his time like his father—killing, farming, and getting high as the battles go on around him. In this world where they only follow orders, mutilation becomes their only expression, the nature of violence their only meaningful form of autonomy in the various power struggles of interior Bengal. After his first year in the field, as the child is groomed by his father to carry on the ways of their mercenary clan, he begins to confront the various legends surrounding the Spider. However, while roaming the strange, spectral forests surrounding the town, his chance encounter with a pair of wandering musicians leads him to question the killings that pattern his life. As he searches for the answers around him, he is slowly led to confront the man his father truly is, as well as the man he knows he will become.   A gripping tale of inherited violence and identity in politically volatile Bengal, Aurko Maitra’s The Spider contains powerful, disturbing parallels to modern-day conflicts. Boldly interrogating our concepts of autonomy and survival in chaos, this revelatory novel explores the impact of political violence and timeless issues of legacy and intergenerational violence.

A gripping, deeply moving novel about one man’s search for truth and identity in the long shadow of war. Heinz Fitz has only one tangible clue to his past: a worn piece of paper from the SS-Lebensborn program, a Nazi initiative designed to promote so-called racial purity. His mother, a Norwegian woman, fell in love with the wrong man—an Austrian soldier—during the German occupation. Betrayed and abandoned, she fled to Austria, only to be turned away by his family. Branded a collaborator in her homeland and a pariah in a foreign land, she was left to survive as best she could. Now, years later, her son is determined to piece together the fragments of his origins. But every answer leads to more questions, and as he unearths painful truths, an alternative story—one of resilience, love, and survival—emerges from the darkness. Inspired by real events, Alois Hotschnig’s novel is both a fierce reckoning with history and a poignant tribute to a mother’s strength. A masterful meditation on memory and storytelling, My Mother’s Silver Fox asks whether the past can ever truly be understood—or if it will always slip through our grasp, like snow through our fingers.

A lecturer’s descent into psychological chaos unfolds against the turbulent backdrop of 1990s Budapest. In Other Death, we are thrown into the chaotic life of a forty-year-old university lecturer who is experiencing a sudden, complete psychological and existential breakdown. Afternoons disappear and years chop and change in confusion as he wanders the streets searching for work. Homelessness, alcoholism, and hate are on the rise in 1990s Budapest as symptoms of the regime change. Images flash up from other lives: a Boer pointing a shotgun in Johannesburg, bodies heaped up in the downtown area, a Volkswagen campervan parked by an empty phone box in Switzerland. As he encounters new and historic traumas embedded in the lives and the buildings around him, the unnamed narrator struggles to grasp any coherent identity. It’s only when he starts to work as a gallery attendant, observing the interactions between viewer and artwork, light and space, that he embarks on the slow healing routine towards clarity. In Barnás’s semi-autobiographical novel, meditations on trauma and urban space, image and observation, and spiritual friendships echo the writings of W. G. Sebald and Thomas Bernhard. Like Vertigo meets The Bell Jar, the magnetic language of Other Death draws the reader into the murky workings of a mind severely afflicted.

A powerful testament to writing as an act of beauty and rebellion that speaks truth and condemns violent legacies and a feverish ode that weaves together personal and national history to finally find healing.  This evocative novel from a great figure of Malagasy literature tells the story of Hira, a writer born on the seventh anniversary of Madagascar’s independence. He wanders through different cities on a book tour, but the experience is amnesiac and confusing. There is a past he is trying to reckon with, filled with violence against both his family and country. He runs from his wife and represses his memories until it all explodes in fever dreams and a vomit of words. But to write the rebirth that he yearns for, Hira must write of his father’s torture, his tortured island, and how both were juxtaposed to his own happy childhood. In combing through these various pasts, he might make the same mistake his father did: trying to change the world but leaving his own family broken.   Drawing from the lived experience of both the author and his parents, the violence of both life and language, and the stories of both myth and history, Return is a search for an individual’s place within larger collective trauma. Infused with Raharimanana’s signature poeticism and intensity, this is a masterwork by an as-yet-overlooked but essential voice in the postcolonial tradition.

Aakriti Kuntal wields language like a blade and a balm, carving out poetry that is urgent and unafraid to ask what it means to exist. What does it mean to exist within language—to shape it, and in turn, to be shaped by it? In Night breaks apart, like pomegranate seeds in my palm, Aakriti Kuntal crafts poems that unravel at the edges of self and myth, where language is neither home nor escape, but a threshold to something more elemental. Her verses move like water rolling and sifting through sediment, shifting between dream and flesh. Through intimate confessions and stark observations, she confronts the absurdity of suffering, the weight of the body, and the vast, unknowable machinery of the universe. Each poem resists easy meaning, instead offering raw honesty: language as both wound and salve. For readers drawn to the introspective and the experimental, Kuntal’s poetry echoes the emotional depth of Ocean Vuong and the intellectual play of Anne Carson. This collection is for those who seek poetry not as answers, but as an experience—visceral, and unafraid to press against the limits of being.

An erudite exploration of transgressive language from the Renaissance by one of Europe’s greatest living philosophers.  This book explores how early modern authors broke linguistic boundaries, creating new words and languages that challenged traditional grammar and lexicon, providing historical insight into today’s debates on the politics of language.  Through a scholarly analysis by Giorgio Agamben, the text delves into the boundary-shifting language of the Renaissance, exemplified by giants like Pantagruel and Gargantua, whose outsized bodies mirror the vastness of their speech.  The macaronic language invented by Teofilo Folengo, blending Latin and vernacular, embodies a linguistic rebellion that transforms language into a tangible, unruly force. Featuring illustrations from the Songes drolatiques de Pantagruel and Folengo’s Baldo, this volume offers a vivid portrayal of language as a physical, dynamic entity that defies grammatical norms.

Since he can remember, Simon Spinks has craved privacy. And now, middle-aged and feted by his peers, the driving force behind the success of Prime Sciences, this craving has only intensified. The claustrophobic is liberating, lockdowns a joy, words best restricted. So when his sanctuary is violated by an intruder, an obsession with security develops and an old problem returns. Thanks to the support of his trusted assistant Linda Haig, and an overhaul of the company''s defences, he survives. Normal service is restored. Both his official and unofficial investigations are resumed. Spinks is happiest in his special room, spending time with those he loves, and while dedicated to the common good it is only right that he reaps the rewards of his labours. The future is rosy. But beyond the range of the cameras, fences and a poisoned no-man''s land, danger threatens. Mickey Moo and his maverick crew of shapeshifting, undercover thinkers are on the move. The civilised and primitive worlds are about to collide.

A selection of poems that blend raw imagery with experimental forms, offering a vivid exploration of the body, language and shifting identities. Nóra Ružicková’s poetry merges bodily experience with linguistic experimentation, evolving from self-reflection to an exploration of the complexities of gender and Central European identity. Her work deftly weaves personal narratives with political and social commentary, forging poems that are both intellectually provocative and deeply embodied. This selection spans nearly 25 years, tracing her work from a late-millennium debut to her latest, most socially engaged collection, which explores novelty within the grand narratives of modern history and critiques humanity's obsession with progress. Through her poems, she challenges the boundaries of language, blending physicality with abstraction through a combination of potent imagery and philosophical reflection. Her poetry treats the body as a space where meaning is simultaneously created and dismantled, probing themes of identity, existence and the instability of interpretation. By experimenting with materiality, bodily experience and the ever-changing mediascape, Ružicková captures the complexities of contemporary human life and dissolves the divide between language and physical reality. In its concluding section, the selection confronts pivotal historical moments and humanity’s relentless pursuit of progress, making for a powerful, thought-provoking engagement with the present.

This poetry collection masterfully weaves themes of identity, resilience, and the search for meaning against the backdrop of an endless winter. Katarína Kucbelová's whitewards is a haunting and deeply moving sequence of poems that unfolds in a stark, snowbound landscape where winter seems endless. Three unnamed figures struggle to find their way through a snow-covered mountainside, grappling with uncertainty, unspoken fears, and the weight of questions they can barely put into words. Framed as a series of brief fragments and longer passages that use a range of narrative and cinematic techniques, the collection explores themes of identity, survival, and the search for meaning in a time of global crisis-whether political, environmental, or technological. Yet amid the darkness, Kucbelová finds light in storytelling itself, offering it as a form of solace, a way to break through loneliness, and a means to endure. The beauty of her images stimulates and inspires, acting as an antidote to the bleakness of the world. This stunning collection of poems explores identity, survival, and the power that storytelling possesses to bring light even to the bleakest landscapes.

A sharp, witty send-up of the literary world, set in the world of book publishing—a must-read for anyone who’s ever dreamt of (or dreaded) getting published.  Cyril Cordouan is the beleaguered editor at Fulmen, a distinguished publishing house known for its solid but not particularly popular literary titles. Every day, Cyril faces an avalanche of subpar manuscripts, struggling to find a glimmer of quality amid the piles of drivel. Rejections are a routine part of his job, but aspiring authors don’t take kindly to their works being dismissed, and one distraught writer tragically ends his life after his manuscript is declined.  Devastated, Cyril decides to create an outlet for these rejected writers. Can group therapy for the hopelessly hopeful cure Cyril’s woes? Not quite. Between vengeful widows, surprise bestsellers, and a crippling crisis of conscience, Cyril’s life is a hilarious disaster.  With sharp wit and keen insight, Laclavetine, himself an industry insider, offers a satirical look at the literary world along with thought-provoking commentary on the nature of literary ambition, rejection, and the often ridiculous realities of the publishing industry.

Poems from a new Slovak voice reminiscent of Rilke and Sharon Olds. An evocative collection by Slovak poet Eva Luka, The Minotaur's Daughter seamlessly melds the human and natural worlds, weaving motifs of mythology, nature, and personal freedom into a tapestry of vivid imagery and profound emotion. The poems traverse settings from Japan to mythic landscapes, exploring the complexities of sexuality, desire, and transition. Central to Luka's work is the theme of resistance-against societal pressures and psychic harm. Her poetic voice defies artistic conformity, merging human and animal identities to challenge gender norms and explore mutable identities. Through this innovative fusion, her poems capture both the terror and beauty of existence, drawing parallels to Rilke's metaphysical explorations while grounding her work in the pantheistic and protoplasmic. Journeying through darkness and light, The Minotaur's Daughter reveals an unwavering commitment to artistic and personal truth, establishing Luka as a formidable voice of resistance in contemporary European poetry.