Everest

Shortlisted for the 2025 JHALAK PROSE PRIZE What happens when you reach Everest's peak? Is it everything you dreamed? In a magnetic follow-up to Winter Animals, Ashani Lewis' debut collection takes a kaleidoscopic approach to desire - its obsessions, its grotesque demands and the distance it creates between us - and the strange things we stubbornly, hopefully, desperately expect from our lives. A dying woman dedicates her life to Antarctic ice; an All-American star longs for a romance that defies convention - to the detriment of his carefully curated reputation; a woman seeking her exes' opinions on a breast augmentation takes us on a whirlwind tour of the complicated, intertwined lives of urbanites; a singer prepares for her film debut, pushing her humanity to its limits at an unusual acting school; a newlywed couple put their marriage to the ultimate test: Everest. In these twenty-one striking stories, Lewis creates a stark world of fleeting infatuations, violent compulsions, unexpected solace and the sombre ghost of memories. Praise for WINTER ANIMALS: 'Thoughtful, intelligent and beautifully written . . . Lewis is definitely a new talent to watch' Marie Claire 'A dreamlike, piercing examination of privilege, youth and freedom' Cecile Pin 'Lewis is superbly talented' Katherine Rundell 'A remarkable novel: atmospheric as hell, beautiful and delightfully intelligent' Jenny Mustard 'A glittering, dark-edged tale . . . Exhilarating and fabulous, I raced through it' Priscilla Morris 'A debut full of ideas. I have the sense that this is the first of many new worlds' Telegraph