Wivenhoe by Samuel Fisher

'Compelling . . . this is a fable for the times ahead that feels essential' Irish Times

'Stunning, insightful, deeply humane prose . . . Fisher indicts all of us yet still offers hope that we may change the ending of this story' Olivia Sudjic

A young man is found brutally murdered in the middle of the snowed-in village of Wivenhoe. Over his body stands another man, axe in hand. The gathered villagers must deal with the consequences of an act that no-one tried to stop.

WIVENHOE is a haunting novel set in an alternate present, in a world that is slowly waking up to the fact that it is living through an environmental disaster. Taking place over twenty-four hours and told through the voices of a mother and her adult son, we see how one small community reacts to social breakdown and isolation.

Samuel Fisher imagines a world, not unlike our own, struck down and on the edge of survival. Tense, poignant, and set against a dramatic landscape, WIVENHOE asks the question: if society as we know it is lost, what would we strive to save? At what point will we admit complicity in our own destruction?

Samuel Fisher is a writer, bookseller and publisher. His debut novel, The Chameleon (Salt, 2018) was longlisted for the Desmond Elliot Prize, shortlisted for the Collyer Bristow Prize and won a Betty Trask in 2019. He co-owns Burley Fisher Books in Hackney and is a director of Peninsula Press.