Portraits at the Palace of Creativity and Wrecking, Han Smith‘s Goldsmiths prize-shortlisted debut, has been featured in The Guardian‘s best fiction of 2024 list! The full list can be read here.

In the review, deputy literary editor Justine Jordan writes:

“Portraits at the Palace of Creativity and Wrecking by Han Smith (JM Originals), a dystopian coming-of-age fable, employs obfuscation and ambiguity to explore propaganda and dissidence.”

The almost daughter is almost normal, because she knows how to know and also not know.

She knows and does not know, for instance, about the barracks by the athletics field, and about the lonely woman she visits each week. She knows—almost—about ghosts, and their ghosts, and she knows not to have questions about them. She knows to focus on being a woman: on training her body and dreaming only of escape.

Then, the almost daughter meets Oksana. Oksana is not even almost normal, and the questions she has are not normal at all.

Portraits at the Palace of Creativity and Wrecking is a story of seeing and part-seeing, of silence and speaking out, of conformation and confrontation, by an exhilarating new voice in fiction.

Portraits at the Palace of Creativity and Wrecking is out now. Grab your copy here or, better, via your local bookshop or Bookshop.org.

Follow Han on Twitter @Han_Smiff.