SPENT LIGHT

Spent Light is a novel. Published in January 2024 by CB editions, it was launched at the London Review Bookshop when Lara was in conversation with Jennifer Hodgson. It was a finalist for The Goldsmiths Prize 2024 and was selected for the TLS, Frieze, The Guardian and New Statesman Books of the Year 2024. It has been translated into Serbian by Dunja Lozuk as Потрошена светлост (Prometej, 2024), into Dutch by Lisette Graswinckel as Verbruikt Licht (Koppernik, 2025), and Spanish by Julia Osuna (Temporal Casa, May 2026). It is coming out in the US with McNally Editions in January 2027, and in Australia with Text Publishing in October 2026. The Spanish, US and Australia editions all include a foreword by Teju Cole.

‘Through the length of this short book, a woman’s thoughts are drifting as it might be towards sleep but constantly jarring the reader wide awake. Who is she, and why do her thoughts turn to sex and violent death when prompted by everyday objects as banal as a fridge magnet? Lara Pawson is a writer for the end of times and Spent Light deserves to survive them.’ Sir Tom Stoppard

‘Although much of the subject matter is solemn, troubling, and an indictment of the horrors of the modern world, there’s beauty and pleasure here too. Pawson’s thoughts are teeming but never cacophonous. At its crescendo, Spent Light shimmers into a modern portrait of the sublime.’ Lucy Scholes, The Telegraph (5-star review here) 

‘Reading Pawson you realise how obedient most writing is, how constrained by squeamishness or protocol. Lara Pawson’s writing is brilliant, unnerving and shockingly alive.’ Miranda France, Times Literary Supplement (full review here)

‘Spent Light is, obviously, not comfortable reading, but it is wild, bold writing in league with perfectly clear thinking, and while disturbing it is also, in a satisfyingly dark and absurd way, comic. Shelve it with Lucy Ellmann, Miriam Toews, Jenny Offill; brilliant, disillusioned women in absolute control of glorious prose.’ Sarah Moss, The Guardian (full review here)

‘Intense, with incredible writing, but it is only 144 pages long. It’s like walking through a furnace for ten minutes. It’s great.’ Stuart Turton, Daily Mail

‘I’m flabbergasted by the naked determination on show here, not to say the talent. Page by page, image by image, association by association, Pawson develops a picture of the world that you won’t be offered anywhere else: stark, unremitting, brilliantly formed and written.’ M. John Harrison

Pawson ‘writes with a grotesque beauty… She is merciless… Pawson has created something very much her own here. It’s not fiction, it’s not non-fiction, it’s not memoir and it’s not an essay.’ Susie Mesure, The Spectator (full review here)

‘A narrative that presents as fragmentary, bordering on stream-of-consciousness, coheres into something deeply affecting – the accumulation of moments of pain, beauty, and epiphany refracted through quotidian things: a timer, a toilet, a toaster, a squirrel, a toenail. Memories abound that can feel confrontational in their bluntness but never gratuitous. Stark, shocking imagery is tempered by the gentle sense of love that pervades the narrative. Pawson confronts horrors, bodily and otherwise, to offer perspective on a relationship […] that offers stability, intellectual companionship, and tenderness. Spent Light coalesces into a Wunderkammer of treasures, memories and mundanities that the reader is invited to view – sometimes repellent, often alluring, always resonant and compelling.’ Andrew Clarke, The Irish Times (full review here)

‘This extraordinary book, with its consideration of art and design and love as well as torture and war and evil as well as defecation and genitalia and sex, is a reminder that ‘exquisite’ can be used as an intensifier for beauty as well as for pain, agony, torture. That is also how I would choose to describe this book that defies description: it’s exquisite. And worth whatever you might pay.’ Michael Winkler, Arts hub, Australia

‘A shocking book. Lara Pawson’s merciless and exquisite prose adorns everyday objects with the violence of history – the savage comedy by which living creatures have become broken, petrified things. I will never look at a toaster or a timer, a toenail or a squirrel, the same way again.’ Merve Emre

‘Maybe the book offers a means of objectifying trauma — literally so. Or perhaps it offers a way of understanding life and death, human cruelty and suffering. … Beyond the concrete, the book reaches into the absence in which things exist… [The book] invokes in the reader a sense that reality as she knows it is a private hallucination; a series of connections she has chosen to make — and could remake, re-imagine, if only she looked again.’ Niamh Donnelly, Financial Times (full review here)

‘There is humour and love in this remarkable book, and an appreciation of the life in everything.’ Tom Gatti, New Statesman (full review here)

‘Despite the darkness that it touches upon, Spent Light feels like a cohesive work, and this is down to the sense of lightness and humanity that shines through Pawson’s prose. Zipping with great speed across objects, memories and fragmented histories, Spent Light is the work of an extremely talented writer, a book I read compulsively.’ Robert Greer, The Idler 

‘Its own cover categorizes it as FICTION/MEMOIR/HISTORY and that hybridity is just one of the ways Pawson’s book is challenging and thrilling and heartbreaking and uplifting at once.’ Steve Himmer, Necessary Fiction (full review here)

‘Pawson’s prose is sharp and unsparing… It possesses a certain terrible beauty, to reference Yeats, but it is also very human and often very funny. It does not fail to remind us of the potential darkness that lurks inside each one of us, yet it also celebrates the capacity to look to the light… A compelling read, it is one that sits uneasily, strangely, and wonderfully in a light of its own making.’ Joseph Schreiber, Rough Ghosts (full review here)

‘A slip of a book. Best read in one exquisite sitting.’ Kiran Dass, RNZ Radio New Zealand (listen to the full review here)

ON THE DUTCH EDITION:

‘As if Proust dipped his madeleine in LSD: Lara Pawson’s Spent Light shows us the darker side of the objects that surround us. The accumulation of indelible images evokes associations with doomscrolling news reports, with the difference that Pawson’s words get under your skin.’ Steven van Ammel, De Standaard ****

‘Lara Pawson sharply demonstrates in her debut novel: there is no escape from the world.’ Joost de Vries, De Volkskrant

‘With poetic descriptions, Pawson lures you into a trap. Elegant sentences mask the horror behind the scenes. Seemingly casually, she says something funny about an egg timer, and a line later, she serves up severed fingers and burned-out eyeballs. Pawson knows how to pour human hell into stunningly beautiful sentences.’ Roderik Six, Knack ****

‘There’s a story in everything. Beautifully written.’ Lidewijde Paris, Nieuwsweekend

‘Lara Pawson’s provocation to look only at motionless objects is successful. […] We are no longer accustomed to looking at anything for long periods of time. Herein lies the unspoken challenge of this book: what happens when objects disappear? What, or who, fills that empty space?’ Ilse Josepha Lazaroms, De Groene Amsterdammer

‘This small venture is the surprising story of a woman who stared the world in the face.’ Roos van Rijswijk, NRC ****

‘Absolutely unique book.’ Koen Eykhout, De Limburger ****

‘Spent Light is a surprising attempt to fully immerse the world. Pawson invites the reader to look more closely: whether it’s at the toaster or the suffering people inflict on each other. The book can be read as a disorienting indictment of indifference. Those who look longer see more than they’d like.’ Dieuwertje Mertens, Het Parool

‘She writes without hesitation about the cruelty of the world. In Spent Light, one of the best books of 2025 in our opinion, Lara Pawson interweaves everyday observations of objects with raw memories of war and violence.’ Olaf Koens, De Standaard 

‘It invites you to look at the ordinary things around you in a different way.’ Tzum

‘Spent Light asks us to choose our belongings carefully and not to remain indifferent. In this way, Pawson confronts us with our ability to look away.’ The Reactor

On X:

‘Are you in the mood for adult, mischievous, shocking, brilliant writing? If so, read this book.’ Wendy Erskine

‘A book teeming, seething at times, with life and lives, enacted in a singular music, with an unaccountable afterglow of optimism.’ David Hayden

‘I’m adding to the chorus here, but this is every bit as beautiful, harrowing and urgent as reviews have attested and more.’ Luke Kennard

‘The book is extraordinary, as everyone says. Beware, though. It’s boobytrapped. The whole book is biblical. Fierce subjectivity burns itself into glass.’ Paul Griffiths

‘I’m reading this book – sadly coming to the end – and have adored every page. I’m so grateful for writing like this and to publishers who take the risk to make it happen. Just brilliant.’ Ben Pester

‘Spent Life took my breath away. I’ve read it twice now, and it’s still working on my brain. A love story about violence and domestic life. It’s a true gem. Please read.’ Stuart Evers

‘This book. My god!!! It is brilliant.’ Erin Vincent

‘It’s magnificent.’ Stu Hennigan