Mrs Death Misses Death
Salena Godden
Available as Paperback, Hardback, eBook, Downloadable audio
Mrs Death tells her intoxicating story in this life-affirming fire-starter of a novel
WINNER OF THE INDIE BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS
SHORTLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE
Mrs Death tells her intoxicating story in this life-affirming fire-starter of a novel
Mrs Death has had enough. She is exhausted by her job and now seeks someone to unburden her conscience to.
She meets Wolf, a troubled young writer, who – enthralled by her stories – begins to write Mrs Death’s memoirs. As the two reflect on the losses they have experienced (or facilitated), their friendship flourishes. All the while, despite her world-weariness, Death must continue to hold humans’ fates in her hands, appearing in our lives when we least expect her …
“A fantastically imaginative story about life, death and everything in between – a potent reminder that life is short and every second should be cherished”
Idris Elba
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“A modern-day Pilgrim’s Progress leavened with caustic wit … This is not light-hearted stuff, yet Godden has produced a miraculously light-hearted novel … an elegant, occasionally uproarious, danse macabre”
guardian
“Exquisite. A daring, poetic offering that establishes Godden as one of our most exciting voices. I loved it”
Irenosen Okojie
“A rhythmic and powerful poetic meditation on death, life and love and the hidden mysteries of the universe; both playful and sombre, hilarious and human”
Nikesh Shukla
“In this timely and exquisite meditation on breath and its best rhyme, we see a stunning performance poet crowding all the energy, wisdom, passion and laughs of her live work into the solid ingot of this astounding novel, as profound as Cohen, as playful as Brautigan. Salena Goddess, more like”
Alan Moore
Salena Godden
Salena Godden FRSL is an award-winning author, poet and broadcaster of Jamaican-mixed heritage based in London. Her debut novel Mrs Death Misses Death won the Indie Book Award for Fiction and the People’s Book Prize, and was shortlisted for the British Book Awards and the Gordon Burn Prize. Film and TV rights for Mrs Death Misses Death have been optioned by Idris Elba’s production company Green Door Pictures. Godden has been shortlisted for the 4thWrite short story prize and the Ted Hughes Prize. Her work has been widely anthologised and broadcast on radio, TV and film. Her poem Pessimism Is for Lightweights is on permanent display at the People’s History Museum, Manchester. She was inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2022.
@salenagodden | salenagodden.co.uk
Salena Godden, author of Mrs Death Misses Death, reads an extract from Mrs Death’s story of The Red Tower at the Durham Book Festival.
‘“I would read an excerpt in Edinburgh and the idea of Mrs Death would be met with a cheer and a ‘yay!’. And exactly the same excerpt down in Bloomsbury [would have] everyone crying, me crying, big hugs at the end … What it has got me thinking is, I wonder if there is a geography of mourning, a geography of grief.” All the reactions are welcome, though. She still thinks one of the scariest things about death is that it is so often surrounded by silence.’
Taboo-busting poet Salena Godden talks to the Guardian about her debut novel Mrs Death Misses Death, missing performing and why Brits struggle to speak about her novel’s all too timely subject.
Katy Guest
Guardian
Salena speaks to Nihal Arthanayake about Mrs Death Misses Death
‘Told in sparse, affecting prose interspersed with poetry, Godden produces a thought-provoking novel that travels across time and place to question the value of life, the experiences of womanhood, and grief in all its forms.’
The Observer
‘Without Death You Wouldn't Live’ – Salena Godden on Writing her Debut
‘As the early drafts of the book developed I started collecting deaths, near deaths and unmourned deaths, invisible deaths and celebrity death and writing about them. I also started testing the work out at my poetry gigs. I’d slip an excerpt of the book into my poetry shows to see how Mrs Death landed with my poetry friends and with spoken word and book festival audiences. I began to notice different responses in different cities and different counties … I’m fascinated by this and hope to examine it further: I wonder if here in the UK we exhibit grief and talk about death and mourn a little differently county by county? Do we mourn differently geographically?’
Salena Godden is featured on the Waterstones blog about writing her debut novel, Mrs Death Misses Death, and how we respond to death across the country.
Salena Godden
Waterstones
