Not Sorry
“An astonishingly smart writer.”
— Neil Gaiman
A man tries to bury his wife and marry his young mistress in the same ceremony. Astrologers rejoice when the government decides to cancel April and May. A new lover purchased online arrives pre-programmed with unappealing habits. And a wife buys her husband an unusual gift – a new heart.
Incisive, smart, funny and fearless – Sarah Salway makes every word count. Her very short stories capture a whole world of fantasy and ordinariness in as little as a single paragraph. Written with passion and biting wit, these taut tales are ambitious, often deliciously dark, and always deeply human.
Praise for Not Sorry
“Sarah Salway brilliantly weaves these razor-sharp and glittering stories with wit, playfulness and no small amount of violence, whether human, robot – or even clothing. Often flirting with the edges of poetry, these fictions are tightly bound, unsparing, entertaining and fantastic in all senses of the word. Read them. You won’t be sorry.”
— Tania Hershman
“Angela Carter does Tales of the Unexpected. These short tales hold the complexities of the novel in their half pages. Mythic, magical real, and at times terrifying, these stories are also lit with the sharpest of humour. Dive in, but beware this collection has teeth.”
— Tiffany Murray
“Delicate as lace, steely as the knitting needles she so powerfully evokes, Sarah Salway’s tiny narratives are infinitely expansive and profound. All of life is here; anecdotes, folktales, aphorisms, proverbs, tempered with her inimitable rueful humour. Highly addictive.”
— Martina Evans
“Sarah Salway is an astonishingly smart writer. Her fiction is always beautifully structured, touching and clever. She manages the trick of creating characters you care about in stories you admire.”
— Neil Gaiman
About the Author
Sarah Salway is a poet, novelist and journalist based in Kent. A former Canterbury Laureate and RLF Fellow at the LSE, she is the author of three novels, including Something Beginning With (Bloomsbury), one collection of short stories and two poetry collections. Sarah currently runs a reading group for the Royal Literary Fund and teaches creative writing in the community.
Vital Statistics
Imprint: Valley Press
Edition: First (October 2021)
Paperback ISBN: 9781912436668
Catalogue number: VP0187
Page count: 160
Trim size: 198x129mm
