> Skip to content
Play sample
  • Published: 29 May 2017
  • ISBN: 9780241968031
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $22.99

Hot Milk




Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2016, a hypnotic tale of female sexuality, power and myth from the author of Swimming Home

Two women arrive in a village on the Spanish coast. Rose is suffering from a strange illness and the doctors are mystified. Her daughter Sofia has brought her here to find a cure with the infamous and controversial Dr Gomez - a man of questionable methods and motives. Intoxicated by thick heat and the seductive people who move through it, both women begin to see their lives clearly for the first time in years.

Through the opposing figures of mother and daughter, Deborah Levy explores the strange and monstrous nature of womanhood. Dreamlike and utterly compulsive, Hot Milk is a delirious fairy tale of feminine potency, a story both modern and timeless.

  • Published: 29 May 2017
  • ISBN: 9780241968031
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $22.99

About the author

Deborah Levy

Deborah Levy writes fiction, plays and poetry. Her work has been staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company, and she is the author of numerous books, including the essay 'Things I Don't Want to Know'and the early novels Swallowing Geography and Beautiful Mutants. Her novel Swimming Home was shortlisted for the 2012 Man Booker Prize, 2012 Specsavers National Book Awards and 2013 Jewish Quarterly Wingate Prize.

Also by Deborah Levy

See all

Praise for Hot Milk

Unsettling, challenging and gloriously written, Hot Milk by Deborah Levy is the multi-generational story of a hallucinatory sort of summer

Juliet Nicolson, Evening Standard

Leaves the reader enraptured and unnerved

Jackie Annesley, Evening Standard

Publisher's description. Shortlisted for the Man Booker and Goldsmiths prizes, a hypnotic tale of female sexuality and power under the scorching midday sun. Sofia and her mother arrive on the Spanish coast looking for answers - what they find there will be strange, seductive and fearsome beyond their wildest dreams.

Penguin