Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020
Featuring on BBC 2's Between the Covers

'Sophie Ward is a dazzling talent who writes like a modern-day F Scott Fitzgerald' Elizabeth Day, author of How To Fail

'An act of such breath-taking imagination, daring and detail that the journey we are on is believable and the debate in the mind non-stop. There are elements of Doris Lessing in the writing - a huge emerging talent here' Fiona Shaw

'A towering literary achievement' Ruth Hogan, author of The Keeper of Lost Things

Rachel and Eliza are planning their future together. One night in bed Rachel wakes up terrified and tells Eliza that an ant has crawled into her eye and is stuck there. Rachel is certain; Eliza, a scientist, is sceptical. Suddenly their entire relationship is called into question. What follows is a uniquely imaginitive sequence of interlinked stories ranging across time, place and perspective to form a sparkling philosophical tale of love, lost and found across the universe.

The Gold Room is a collection of poetry and prose from the Creative Writing doctoral students at Goldsmiths, University of London. It contains memoir and novel extracts, short stories and poems by best-selling and award-winning authors as well as exciting new literary talent. Subjects range widely - sperm donation, literary envy, the wonder of prunes, and the best strategies for eating your husband. From a seduction of Gilgamesh to a Suffragette plot, from the objects in an attic to a disturbing love affair, from teenage mental breakdown to the fridges of ghosts - this is writing that is prepared to live dangerously, and to challenge expectations. The anthology is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary writing.

The anthology contains the following pieces:

An introduction by Blake Morrison

An extract from Catherine Coldstream’s memoir The Effects of Turpentine and Other Spirits, which focuses upon her childhood, her difficult journey to adulthood, and the lasting influence of her relationship with her father, the painter William Coldstream.

An extract from Clare F. Davis’s memoir, Little Black Oz, which focuses upon how her relationship with her father, Dennis, changes over the decades as Clare learns to deal with his uncaring attitude towards her mentally ill mother.

Extract from Anna Derrig’s memoir, her teenage son visits the school that asked him to leave weeks earlier.

Six poems by Rebecca Farmer which explore themes of dying, grief and ghosts in surprising, haunting lyrical verse.

A short story by Francis Gilbert narrated by a young woman who watches in horror as her best friend is seduced by a lecherous poet at a literary party.

A poem by Catherine Humble about the beginning of a love affair in New York.

A short story by Giovanna Iozzi which could be described as “literary sci-fi Gothic”: a young woman is persuaded to have monitoring device inserted in an intimate place.

An extract from a historical novel by Sonia Lambert where a suffragette smuggles herself into a high society function with shocking consequences.

Incantatory and mesmeric poems by Jenny Lewis, drawing upon the Epic of Gilgamesh for their inspiration.

A short story by Andrea Mason where a relationship is interrogated through objects.

A novel extract by Jennifer Nadel in which a teenage girl is seduced by an older man.

Poems by Katrina Naomi where family relationships, feminism and the ironies of power are explored with subtle lyricism.

A short story by Yoanna Pak which is about a teenage Korean girl’s quest to commit suicide.

Poems by Jocelyn where love, desire, domesticity and the Devil are conjured up in surprising, thought-provoking verse.

A short story by Sophie Ward in which a child teaches his parents to cope with loss.

Poems by Susan Watson which explore literary criticism and the act of reading.

An extract from Natalie Young’s best-selling novel about a woman who eats her husband.