The Story of the Forest

SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION 2023

'Epic and marvellously entertaining... There's a furious energy to the novel, which constantly moves forward even as it looks sorrowfully back'

FINANCIAL TIMES

'Magnificent... I want to press a copy on everyone I know'

NIGELLA LAWSON

It's 1913 and a young, carefree and recklessly innocent girl, Mina, goes out into the forest on the edge of the Baltic sea and meets a gang of rowdy young men with revolution on their minds. It sounds like a fairy tale but it's life.

The adventure leads to flight, emigration and a new land, a new language and the pursuit of idealism or happiness - in Liverpool.

But what of the stories from the old country; how do they shape and form the next generations who have heard the well-worn tales?