Han Smith, whose debut novel Portraits at the Palace of Creativity and Wrecking was published by John Murray Press on 20th June 2024, is taking part in a number of events this week.

Praised as “intimate, intricate, and ultimately irresistible” by Orwell Prize-longlisted Ruby Cowling, you can hear more about Han’s debut on 25th June, when Han will be speaking in Durham, and on 26th June, when Han will be speaking in Manchester. For full details about these events, including how to book tickets, see here.

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.