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  • Published: 6 May 2021
  • ISBN: 9781529119343
  • Imprint: Merky Books Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $26.00

Sorrowland




A genre-bending work of Gothic fiction that wrestles with the tangled history of racism in America and the marginalisation of society's undesirables.

'Sorrowland is a wonderland of fantastical and frightening, magical and real. At the centre of this world and leaping off the page is Vern: unstoppable, unforgettable, and unlike anyone you have ever seen before.' MARLON JAMES, Booker Prize-winning author

'A fantastical, fierce reckoning ... Sorrowland is gorgeous, and the writing, the storytelling, are magnificent. This country has a dark history of what it's willing to do to black bodies, and Rivers Solomon lays that truth bare in a most unexpected, absolutely brilliant way.' ROXANE GAY
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Vern, a Black woman with albinism, is hunted after escaping a religious compound, then she discovers that her body is changing and that she is developing extra-sensory powers.

Alone in the woods, she gives birth to twins and raises them away from the influence of the outside world. But something is wrong - not with them, but with her own body. It's itching, it's stronger, it's... not normal.

To understand her body's metamorphosis, Vern must investigate not just the secluded religious compound she fled but the violent history of dehumanisation, medical experimentation, and genocide that produced it. In the course of reclaiming her own darkness, Vern learns that monsters aren't just individuals, but entire histories, systems, and nations.
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'A furious utopia. Utterly compelling, brilliant and terrifying. Sorrowland seizes the history of white supremacy, racist medical experimentation, and the dream - and danger - of the commune and gnashes it into something magnificent and truly reparative. An epic fantasy that interweaves righteous, large-scale confrontations with power, extremely sexy and moving erotic gothic horror, and exquisite, meticulous renderings of the daily life of parenting. This is a fairy tale for adults, spangled in the wreckage of the world. A gorgeous, singular, and profound work.' JORDY ROSENBERG, author of Confessions of the Fox

  • Published: 6 May 2021
  • ISBN: 9781529119343
  • Imprint: Merky Books Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $26.00

About the author

Rivers Solomon

Rivers Solomon is an American author of the 2017 science fiction novel An Unkindness of Ghosts and Sorrowland which is set to be published in 2021. In 2018, they received the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses' Firecracker Award in Fiction for their debut novel and were nominated for a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in the debut novel category. They live in the UK.

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