Books by Isabel Waidner
“The eponymous protagonist has won a prize in a city that seems to be a surreal version of Prague, but there’s a complication when they try to collect it. They enlist the help of a chat show host to track it down, but they seem as busy dealing with an eight-legged version of Bambi… There are nods to a real murdered playwright, to Franz Kafka, to Disney and to the American artist Nicole Eisenman, alongside time travel and paradoxes. In the meantime, the novel raises questions about gender, sexuality, class, intersectionality and creativity, in a short but densely constructed narrative.” Read more...
The Best Science Fiction: The 2024 Arthur C. Clarke Award Shortlist
Andrew M. Butler, Film Critics & Scholar
“What I was immediately struck by was her joyful linguistic playfulness. It seems a radical act.” Read more...
Interviews where books by Isabel Waidner were recommended
The Best Absurdist Literature, recommended by Joanna Walsh
‘Absurdism is completely out there – it’s about clashing and bright colours and over-the-top metaphors.’ Author and critic Joanna Walsh considers the peculiar nature and aims of absurdist literature, from Daniil Kharms’s shattered narratives to Isabel Waidner’s joyful assaults on sense.
The Best Science Fiction: The 2024 Arthur C. Clarke Award Shortlist, recommended by Andrew M. Butler
Every year, the judges for the Arthur C. Clarke Award highlight the best of the latest batch of science fiction books. In 2024, the six-strong shortlist includes an exploration of octopus intelligence, a queer space opera, and a dystopian novel hailed as the new Hunger Games. Andrew M. Butler, academic and chair of the judges, talks us through the finalists for the title of sci fi novel of the year. See all our best science fiction books and best novels of 2024 recommendations
