Sterling Karat Gold by Isabel Waidner

Sterling Karat Gold by Isabel Waidner

Like Franz Kafka's The Trial for the post-truth era, at once "surreal, polemical, and fun" (The Telegraph).

Sterling Beckenbauer is plunged into a terrifying and nonsensical world one morning when they are attacked, then unfairly arrested, in their neighborhood in London. With the help of their friends, Sterling hosts a trial of their own in order to exonerate themselves and to hold the powers that be to account.

Sterling Karat Gold, in the words of Kamila Shamsie, is "a madly brilliant and deeply sane novel that reveals surrealism as possibly the most effective way of talking about the political moment we find ourselves in." In it, Isabel Waidner concocts a world replete with bullfighters, high fashion, DIY theater, the Beach Boys, and time-traveling spaceships. The acclaimed winner of the 2021 Goldsmiths Prize for fiction that breaks the mold and extends the possibilities of the form, this novel explores the phantasmagoric nature of contemporary life, especially for nonbinary migrants, and daringly revises how solidarity and justice might be sought and won. Sterling Karat Gold couldn't be a better North American introduction to a writer with an irresistible style and unforgettable vision.

Isabel Waidner is a cultural theorist and writer. She being the author of three works of original fiction, the most recent of which is Gaudy Bauble (Dostoevsky Wannabe, 2017), which is on the longlist for the Times Literary Supplement's Republic of Consciousness Prize for rigorous literary fiction and magnificent writing. 3: AM, Berfrois, Configurations, The Happy Hypocrite, The Quietus, and Minor Literature[s] have published or will publish her articles and short fiction. Waidner recorded records on the UK labels Rough Trade (2003) and Blast First (2004) as part of the indie band Klang. She is a lecturer in English and Creative Writing at Roehampton University in London, UK, and the editor of Liberating the Canon: An Anthology of Innovative Writing (Dostoyevsky Wannabe, 2018). @isabelwaidne @isabelwaidne @isabelwaidne @isabelw