Still Born: A Novel

International Booker Prize Shortlist

2023 Cercador Prize Finalist

Guadalupe Nettel’s gripping & insightful fourth novel explores one of life’s most consequential decisions – whether or not to have children.

"This highly original novel, in an excellent translation by Rosalind Harvey, pursues a range of ideas connected to children, who should have them & who should take care of them…There’s a dark undertow to Still Born that reminded me of Elena Ferrante’s novels." — Miranda France, TLS

Alina & Laura are independent & career-driven women in their mid-thirties, neither of whom has built their future around the prospect of a family. Laura has taken the drastic decision to be sterilised, but as time goes by Alina becomes drawn to the idea of becoming a mother.   

When complications arise in Alina’s pregnancy & Laura becomes attached to her neighbour’s son, both women are forced to reckon with the complexity of their emotions, in Nettel’s sensitive & surgically precise exploration of maternal ambivalence. 

"Two best friends share an aversion to 'the human shackles' of motherhood, only to discover that life has other plans. With a twisty, enveloping plot, the novel poses some of the knottiest questions about freedom, disability, & dependence – all in language so blunt it burns." — The International Booker Prize 2023 Panel of Judges

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Guadalupe Nettel is the author of the international award-winning novels The Body Where I Was Born (2011), After the Winter (2014, Herralde Novel Prize) & Still Born (2020). She has also written three collections of short stories, all published by Anagrama. Nettel’s work has been translated into more than 15 languages & has appeared in publications such as Granta, the White Review, El País, the New York Times, La Repubblica & La Stampa.  She is currently the director of the magazine Revista de la Universidad de México.