Paradise by Ben Tufnell

Paradise by Ben Tufnell

A world on the brink of collapse. Dense woods, mountains, a standing stone, a barrow, and a very old house. But if you’ve only ever known concrete and glass, how do you live in a place like this?

Recruited by a mysterious organisation, Nash thinks things are finally going his way. But when a job goes badly wrong, he is taken to an isolated location to await a decision on his fate.

Paradise is a crumbling cottage deep in a forest; Nash is free to leave the house but must not leave the woods. It is winter, and this wild and remote place is unknowable and terrifying. He attempts to map his surroundings to find a way out, but they resist him, the land seemingly shifting and changing. Moreover, he begins to suspect that his employers’ intentions may be much darker than anticipated.

Forming an unlikely friendship, Nash finally begins to understand the consoling power of the place that has become his home. Brigid is sure of herself and at home in the natural world, while he is urban, lost. But she longs for his world, and he longs for hers.

Now the wheel of the year is turning. As winter gives way to spring Nash’s fate has been decided, and they are coming to deliver their verdict…

Paradise is the brilliant new novel from Ben Tufnell, an uncategorizable Kafkaesque eco-thriller combining elements of noir, folk horror and nature writing, addressing the most urgent of contemporary issues.

Ben Tufnell is a writer and curator based in London. His short stories have been published by Conjunctions, Litro, Lunate, Nightjar Press, Storgy and Structo, amongst others, and included in Best British Short Stories 2024 (Salt Publishing).

He has been longlisted or highly commended for the BBC National Short Story Award, the Sean O’Faolain Short Story Prize, The White Review Short Story Prize and the Disquiet Fiction Prize, and shortlisted for the Society of Authors’ ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award for short fiction.

His debut novel, The North Shore, was published by Fleet (Little, Brown) in 2023.