Eley Williams Knihy

With affectionate, irreverent and playful prose, the inability to communicate exactly what we mean dominates this bold new collection from one of Britain's unique and most original new writers.

It is the final year of the 19th century and Peter Winceworth has reached the letter 'S', toiling away for the much-anticipated and multi-volume 'Swansby's New Encyclopaedic Dictionary'. He is overwhelmed at his desk and increasingly uneasy that his colleagues are attempting to corral language and regiment facts. Compelled to assert some sense of individual purpose and exercise artistic freedom, Winceworth begins inserting unauthorised, fictitious entries into the dictionary. In the present day, young intern Mallory is tasked with uncovering these mountweazels as the text of the dictionary is digitised for modern readers. Through the words and their definitions she finds she has access to their creator's motivations, hopes and desires. More pressingly, she must also field daily threatening anonymous phone calls.

A Granta Best Young British Novelist 'A thrilling love for the stuff of language … Magical' JON McGREGOR 'A visionary writer' JAN CARSON 'Erudite and audacious' KIERAN GODDARD

A GRANTA BEST YOUNG BRITISH NOVELIST 2023 'The real inexplicable gorgeous brilliant thing' MAX PORTER 'She has arrived in a class of her own' SARAH PERRY 'Funny, playful and utterly bravura' MELISSA HARRISON The debut story collection from Eley Williams centres upon the difficulties of communication and the way in which one's thoughts - absurd, encompassing, oblique - may never be fully communicable and yet can overwhelm. Attrib. and other stories celebrates the tricksiness of language just as it confronts its limits. Correspondingly, the stories are littered with the physical ephemera of language: dictionaries, dog-eared pages, bookmarks and old coffee stains on older books. This is writing that centres on the weird, tender intricacies of the everyday where characters vie to 'own' their words, tell tall tales and attempt to define their worlds. With affectionate, irreverent and playful prose, the inability to communicate exactly what we mean dominates this bold collection from one of Britain's unique and most original writers.