H(A)PPY

Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2018

After they banded together and saved us from the Floods and the Fires and the Plagues and the Death Cults, the Altruistic Powers actively discouraged the Young from thinking about God. We walked a new path.

Imagine a perfect world where everything is known, where everything is open, where there can be no doubt, no hatred, no poverty, no greed.

Imagine a System which both nurtures and protects. A Community which nourishes and sustains. An infinite world. A world without sickness, without death. A world without God. A world without fear.

Could you... might you be happy there?

H(A)PPY is a post-post apocalyptic Alice in Wonderland, a story which tells itself and then consumes itself. It's a place where language glows, where words buzz and sparkle and finally implode.

It's a novel which twists and writhes with all the terrifying precision of a tiny fish in an Escher lithograph - a book where the mere telling of a story is the end of certainty.

British author Nicola Barker made her name with novels that exemplified her talent for blending a keen understanding of nature with more than a touch of Gothic strangeness. Three of her novels have been nominated for the Man Booker Prize with Clear being longlisted and Darkmans and The Yips both making it to the coveted shortlist. Her other novels include: In the Approaches, The Cauliflower and H(a)ppy.