Animals At Night
SHORTLISTED FOR THE EDGE HILL PRIZE
“The stories simmer with rebellion, rage and empathy… All of life is here in its joy and horror, both among humans and within the natural world, presented with a rare and fierce intimacy.” Prospect Magazine
“Booth’s writing is brooding and brilliant. …Read Animals at Night after dark, to set yourself up for a disturbed night’s sleep. More importantly, read it to delve into a world of unsettling liminality.” Mslexia
“The stories in Animals at Night are by turns dark and life-affirming, joyful and harrowing, bleak but with a humour that made me laugh out loud. Each is beautifully written with an attention to detail that makes an art of the short form fiction format.” The Mechanics Institute Review
A woman feeding a baby late at night listens to the animal sounds in the city around her. A grieving widow encounters an injured jellyfish on a deserted beach. A young woman can’t shake the image of dying hare she finds at the side of the road. A dairy farmer hears her herd bellow with fear at night.
Animals at Night is Naomi Booth’s first collection of short stories. Collected here are stories that illuminate the strange nocturnal meetings between humans and other animals.
Naomi Booth is a writer and academic. Her fiction tends to explore unsettling landscapes, strange compulsions, dangerous bodies and contamination. Her short fiction has been longlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award, the Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize, and included in Best British Short Stories 2019. Her story Sour Hall was adapted into an audio drama by Audible.
Naomi Booth
Naomi is an experienced author, academic, creative writing lecturer, examiner, mentor and prize judge. She grew up in Bradford. Her fiction explores, amongst other things, weird landscapes, concentric objects, compulsive fainting, pregnancy, skin, crocuses and environmental contamination.
