Today I might trace the rungs of her larynx or tap at her trachea like the bones of a xylophone . . .

Winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize
Shortlisted: Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year - Goldsmiths Prize - Betty Trask Prize
Longlisted: Booker Prize - Dylan Thomas Prize

Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies is a story of coming-of-age at the end of a life. Utterly heart-breaking yet darkly funny, Maddie Mortimer’s debut is a symphonic journey through one woman’s body: a celebration of desire, forgiveness, and the darkness within us all.

‘Original, memorable, shimmering’ - Sarah Moss, author of Ghost Wall

Lia has only one child, Iris; her magical, awkward, endlessly creative daughter who has just entered the battleground of her teenage years. Lia and Iris have always been close, but there is a war playing out inside Lia’s body, too, and everything is about to change.

As she confronts what might be the end, memories of her own childhood and a passionate love affair come rushing into her present, unearthing buried secrets and her family’s deepest fears. But Lia still has hope . . . for more time, for more love, for more Iris.

The Sunday Times Book of the Year
'Restlessly inventive . . . delicate and persuasive' - The Guardian
‘Extraordinary, kaleidoscopic’ - Daisy Johnson, author of Everything, Under

"Remarkable . . . A tearjerker, but it's hopeful too . . . Brave, inventive and mature" - Sunday Times

"Compelling and uplifting . . . undeniably impressive: Mortimer is clearly a talent to watch" - Telegraph

"Brave, inventive and mature . . . a remarkable debut " - The Times, The best paperbacks of 2023

"Lyrical and beautiful, this is a novel unlike anything else" - Stylist

"Striking . . . formally inventive . . . Sadness is not allowed to crowd out wit and joy" - New Yorker

"

Technically dazzling . . . Mortimer has the same felicity with language as Jon McGregor, combining an incantatory prose style with imagery so acute it almost burns

"Ambitious, sprawling . . . brings to mind Eimear McBride's A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing . . . restlessly inventive . . . delicate and persuasive . . . sharply funny" - Guardian

"It may move between different styles and moods, but underpinning it all is the book’s bursting energy and, in the face of death, its verve for life" - i newspaper

"This is a touching, eye-opening perspective on life and illness like you've never read before" - Good Housekeeping

"Using word placement, font, and shape to create images on the page, Mortimer deepens the reader’s engagement with the story and characters . . . Through breathtaking attention to detail, Mortimer crafts a stunning novel that touches on the expanses one life can contain" - Booklist (starred)

"Maddie Mortimer's dazzling debut novel about a woman with breast cancer is a life-affirming read - all the more so because of its proximity to death . . . While there are many books that explore these themes, it is rare to find one that does so in such an immersive and harrowing way" - Straits Times