‘You’re holding a torpedo of a book in your hand. Take a seat and get comfortable. This novel’s energy, humour and rebel spirit will awaken your mind and change your way of thinking’ Olga Tokarczuk
Anna Frenza hates the tyrannical tree huggers and idiotic eco-warriors, after all, she’s CEO of Poland’s biggest oil company. But when she finds herself sleepwalking into the woods and making love to a tree, all caught on camera, her career comes to an abrupt end. Her mind splinters and, whether by delusion or possession of spirit, she finds herself in a medieval province ruled by the Catholic Church.
Deep in the past, she falls in with Mathilde Spalt, leader of the Earthen Ones – a congregation of women who live in the woods and reject all patriarchy. Instead engaging in the ecstatic, sensuous worship of Mother Earth. Anna learns to love the forest she had once dismissed . . . until the Church decides to fell the trees and all the women within it.
Bold and entirely unexpected, Hexes of the Deadwood Forest is a collective rebellion, the death knell to the elevation of the erect. Take hold of your seat; patriarchy is coming to an end.
‘The kind of debut that grabs you by the collar and doesn’t apologise, it’s bold, surreal, feminist and ferociously funny – exactly the kind of book that rewires your brain’ – Service95
‘You’re holding a torpedo of a book in your hand. Take a seat and get comfortable. This novel’s energy, humor, and rebel spirit will awaken your mind and change your way of thinking’ – Olga Tokarczuk
Agnieszka Szpila (Author)
Agnieszka Szpila is one of Poland’s most critically acclaimed, bestselling, and transgressive writers. The Polish edition of Hexes of the Deadwood Forest was longlisted for the Nike Award, the country’s premier literary award, and will be published in at least nine countries around the world.
Scotia Gilroy (Translator)
Scotia Gilroy is a Canadian writer and translator of Polish literature. She holds a First Class Honours degree in English literature from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver and a diploma in Polish language and literature from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. Scotia was shortlisted for the EBRD Literature Prize in 2022. She is an alumna of the National Centre for Writing’s Emerging Translator Mentorship in Norwich, and the BCLT’s summer school for literary translators.
