Promotional Information

An exhilarating, disquieting and joyful adventure through myth and magic, chaos and crisis, by the author of the acclaimed and beloved Folk

About the Author

Zoe Gilbert's debut novel Folk was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and named an Observer Book of the Year. She is the winner of the Costa Short Story Award 2014. Her work has appeared on BBC Radio 4, and in anthology and journals in the UK and internationally. She has taken part in writing projects in China and South Korea for the British Council, and she is completing a PhD on folk tales in contemporary fiction. She is the co-founder of London Lit Lab, which provides writing courses and mentoring for writers. Zoe Gilbert lives on the coast in Kent.

Reviews

Weaving together prose and poetry, myth and history, the past, present and future, it's a work of extraordinary ambition, brilliantly realised * OBSERVER *
A dark-dazzling archive of enchantments, pursuit, and desire -- ELEY WILLIAMS
Inventive and subversive ... A mesmerising journey down the byways of English folklore * MAIL ON SUNDAY *
Verbally dextrous, inventive, and hugely entertaining * THE TIMES *
This is the most adventurous, stylistically magnificent thing I've read for years. Nobody does fantasy like Zoe Gilbert -- NATASHA PULLEY
Mischief Acts is a deeply lyrical, century-spanning polyphony of voices; a dazzling new take on an ancient myth, reminding us of the wildness within. I adored it -- KERRY ANDREW
Mischief Acts is brimming with magic - full of wild hunts, river spirits and revelry. The story of Herne, like the forest itself, transforms, entangles and enchants -- LUCY WOOD
Superb. A work of shimmering allure. By turns beguiling and mercurial, Gilbert takes British folklore to new heights -- IRENOSEN OKOJIE
Praise for Folk: 'An extraordinary debut novel ... It feels both ancient - drawing on deep seams of myth and folklore - and strikingly contemporary, pushing at the edges of what we mean when we call a book a novel. In Folk, Zoe Gilbert has made a thing of strange and enduring beauty -- ALEX PRESTON * FINANCIAL TIMES *
Folk is a special book: immersive and dripping with life, each story a spell, an allegory, a dark, smoky poem divined from the landscape of our ancient kingdom ... It reads like a dream that, once visited, is difficult to leave behind -- BEN MYERS * GUARDIAN *
Genuinely original, disturbing, beautiful and gripping ... Folk can be read as a map of the British mythic imagination: of the river under the river. Starkly original and expertly written, it draws you, like a faerie song, into a kingdom from which you may never escape, and may not want to * NEW STATESMAN *
Dazzling and unsettling, much like the best and darkest of fairy tales * TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT *
A dark, often discomforting debut ... Gilbert's sensuous prose conjures fantastical figures including a man born with a wing for an arm, and a girl who's abducted by a water bull ... Bewitching * MAIL ON SUNDAY, BEST NEW FICTION *
Folk is absolutely stunning. I loved it. With gorgeous, incantatory prose, it submerges you in a mysterious and utterly compelling world. Its illumination lingers long after you close the book -- MADELINE MILLER
I was thoroughly absorbed. Zoe Gilbert's invented folk-world is sensuous and dangerous and thick with magic -- TESSA HADLEY
That rare thing: genuinely unique. It's part-myth, part-allegory, wholly wonderful * OBSERVER, BOOKS OF THE YEAR *
A captivating mythical, magical and haunting debut which draws on fascinating folklore * I PAPER *