Author(s): Julianne Pachico

Novel | Colombia

The propulsive debut novel from one of the most innovative young fiction writers today - a searing and affecting depiction of what redemption can be for a person and for a country in the wake of trauma.

Lina returns to Colombia after twenty years away. Sent to England after her mother's death when she was eight, she's searching for the person who can tell her what's happened in the time that has passed. Matty - Lina's childhood confidant, her best friend - now runs a refuge called The Anthill for the street kids of Medellín. But her long-anticipated reunion with him is struck by tension. Memory is fallible, and Lina discovers that everyone has a version of the past that is very, very different.

 'A brilliant, feverishly imaginative novel.' - Sharlene Teo

'Seriously impressive.' - Claire Adam 'A vibrantly intelligent work.' - Sergio de la Pava

'Superb.' - Kelly Link

'International in scope, profoundly human in its concerns, it feels like just the kind of novel we need in unsettling times.' - Laird Hunt

Review: 'Written in prose that disrespects established boundaries to reveal a unique and courageous voice, Julianne Pachico's The Anthill, is the story of two young people searching for identity and belonging. In doing so, and with the lightest of touches, Pachico lays bare the trauma of life in post-peace Columbia.' - Ingrid Persaud, author of Love after Love
'A stark look at a traumatized city and the way privilege corrupts.' - Elle

Author Biography: Julianne Pachico was born in 1985 in Cambridge and grew up in Cali, Colombia. She is a graduate of both the MA and PhD in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, where she currently teaches on the Creative Writing MA. She is the only writer to have two stories in the 2015 anthology of the Best British Short Stories, and her short fiction has been published by The New Yorker among other publications. In 2017 Pachico was shortlisted for the Sunday Times/Peters Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award.