Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies
Award History
| Award | Year | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Desmond Elliott Prize | 2022 | Winner |
| Betty Trask Award | 2022 | Shortlist |
| Desmond Elliott Prize | 2021 | Shortlist |
| James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction | 2021 | Shortlist |
| Desmond Elliott Prize | 2020 | Shortlist |
About This Book
Maddie Mortimer's debut novel follows Lia, a mother dying of cancer, through a narrative whose voices include her twelve-year-old daughter, her husband, and the cancer itself — an entity that speaks in associative, morphing prose. Formally audacious and emotionally devastating, the novel is as much about language and the body as it is about death. It won the Desmond Elliott Prize in 2022.
About the Author
Maddie Mortimer is a British novelist and visual artist born in 1994. She studied at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at Oxford. Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies (2022, Picador) is her debut novel, following Lia, a mother dying of cancer, through a narrative whose voices include her twelve-year-old daughter, her husband, and the cancer itself — which speaks in associative, morphing prose of unusual formal audacity. Read more →
