Delphi

'Vivid as fireworks ... Both terrifying and exhilarating' Doireann Ní Ghríofa, author of A Ghost in the Throat 
 
'Funny and sharp ... A hungry book, looking everywhere and seeing everything' Observer 
 
In a time more turbulent than any of us could have ever imagined, a woman is attempting to write a book about prophecy in the ancient world. 
 
Navigating the tightening grip of lockdown, a marriage in crisis, and a ten-year-old son who seems increasingly unreachable, she becomes fixated on our many forms of divination and prediction: on oracles, tarot cards and tea leaves and the questions we have always asked as we scroll and click and rage against our fates. 
 
But in doing so she fails to notice the future creeping into the heart of her own home. For despite our best intentions - our sacrifices and our bargains with the gods - time, certainty and, sometimes, those we love, can still slip away ... 
 
Heartbreakingly relatable and achingly funny Delphi is both a snapshot and a time capsule, deftly capturing our pasts, our presents, and how we keep on going in a world that is ever more uncertain and absurd. 
 
'Impressive ... What good fiction is meant to do' The New York Times 
 
'Bold, brave and uncompromising, Pollard has found a way to write about the last couple of years which is both truthful and enjoyable to read, which I didn't think was possible' Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of Everyone is Still Alive

Inviting, stylish and candid ... Pollard's future, as a novelist, is very bright indeed

For anyone looking for ways of thinking creatively and with love about art in an emergency and what just happened to us all I would recommend it, because despite the bleakness - you can't have realism without bleakness now - this is clever, warm and funny writing

Funny and sharp ... Ripe with references and allusions ... Delphi is not just a novel about Covid; it's also about how a given historical moment such as the pandemic can connect us to the past and to the universal

This isn't the first - and most certainly won't be the last - pandemic novel, but it might be the most brilliant ... As a scribe of the present, Pollard, who is a successful poet and playwright, often recalls Ali Smith. But whereas Smith's formula has lately seemed rather stale, Pollard's novel is consistently inspired, and will keep you gripped all the way through to the heart-stopping finale

If you're a fan of Greek mythology, you'll enjoy Delphi ... What I loved most about this quick read is the straight-talking, frustrated narrative voice, which feels so real and relatable ... There's something strangely comforting about seeing the messiness of lockdown life through fictional eyes

Set in the dark days of the 2020 lockdowns, this moodily relatable narrative introduces a protagonist who, faced with a global pandemic and a marriage in crisis, looks to the ancient art of prophecy for consolation ... This is a powerful fable about life in an ever-more unpredictable world

Harper’s Bazaar, 15 brilliant debut novels to discover now

Delphi distils something elusive and upsetting about all the things we can't quite see or understand about the present moment, even as all we ever do is look. This feels impressive, part of what good fiction is meant to do

Darkly funny ... This book does a superb job of providing perspective by connecting our present moment to ancient history in a way that's clever and surprising. For fans of Jenny Offill, Ottessa Moshfegh and Sally Rooney, here's another hot sad girl book to add to your list

There's a refreshing acerbity to the central character in Delphi ... Delphi is an angry, witty, at times despairing account of one woman's lockdown

Finally, a brilliantly funny and sad look into the heart of the pandemic lockdown... Pollard's debut novel, Delphi, is a greatest hits of COVID-era angst that manages to avoid cliches and tired complaints while being reassuringly familiar at the same time... This is the COVID novel I've been wanting to read - the COVID novel that feels brilliantly true to real life while elevating the monotonous drag of lockdown into something funny, sad and universal... [in] compact, concise language... Characters, settings and even whole scenes are drawn in quick, exquisite precision full of wit and pathos. Its intimacy reminded me of Sally Rooney and its subtle, sly humor of Miriam Toews' All My Puny Sorrows... a reassuring reflection in the darkness

An ingenious response to Covid, combining ancient Greek prophecy with the daily frustrations of lockdown to face up to our fears for the future

Lyrical and ambitious, humorous and disturbing at points, Delphi is a relatable tale ... Delphi gets to the heart of what we might not see coming when the future isn't on our radar

Delphi [...] deftly utilises the occult world to shine an unflinching light on domestic mundanity, midlife anxiety and our changed relationship with the future ... Pollard takes care to demonstrate that amidst overwhelming, life-altering experiences, we can find comfort in small miracles and moments - a smile from a loved one, or recovery from illness. An important reminder that there is a sense of hope and contentment to be found in the present

Delphi is a triumph of sly observation, wit and tragedy... dark and dangerous, disturbed and disturbing in equal measure - I loved it.

Consoling, harrowing, hilarious. I feel like it's healed me ...Pollard's narrator is so funny and so radically honest it leaves you reeling

Luke Kennard, author of Notes on the Sonnets

Delphi is a compact miracle of a book

Bold, brave and uncompromising, Pollard has found a way to write about the last couple of years which is both truthful and enjoyable to read, which I didn't think was possible. Exhilarating, exciting, rare and beautiful

Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of Write It All Down

Vivid as fireworks, Delphi explodes with the ambivalence, rage and dread of middle years lived within a world of pandemic and climate collapse. Both terrifying and exhilarating

Doireann Ní Ghríofa, author of A Ghost in the Throat

Using language that charms and beguiles, Clare Pollard cleverly creates moments of the darkest déjà vu, so that I was swept up into a story which I was both unnerved and reassured to recognise

Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground

Delphi delivers an urgency unlike any I've experienced. I loved this book so much; the language, the humour, the style, which reminded me of both Patricia Lockwood and Sheila Heti. A brilliant novel born of searing eloquence and sinister wit

Clare Pollard is an award-winning poet and playwright based in London. She is the author of five poetry collections and the former Editor of the Modern Poetry in Translation magazine. Her first novel, Delphi , was published by Fig Tree in 2022. The Modern Fairies is her second novel.

In a time more turbulent than any of us could have ever imagined, a woman is attempting to write a book about prophecy in the ancient world. 
 
Navigating the tightening grip of lockdown, a marriage in crisis, and a ten-year-old son who seems increasingly unreachable, she becomes fixated on our many forms of divination and prediction: on oracles, tarot cards and tea leaves and the questions we have always asked as we scroll and click and rage against our fates. 
 
But in doing so she fails to notice the future creeping into the heart of her own home. For despite our best intentions - our sacrifices and our bargains with the gods - time, certainty and, sometimes, those we love, can still slip away ...

The Tales Behind Children's Picture Books

Fierce Bad Rabbits

What is The Tiger Who Came to Tea really about? 
 How is Meg and Mog related to Polish embroidery? 
 And why does death in picture books involve being eaten? 
 
Fierce Bad Rabbits explores the stories behind our favourite picture books, weaving in tales of Clare Pollard's childhood reading and her re-discovery of the classic tales as a parent. Because the best picture books are far more complex than they seem - and darker too. Monsters can gobble up children and go unnoticed, power is not always used wisely, and the wild things are closer than you think. 
 
'A gem . . . hard to put down. Thoroughly enjoyable' Spectator 
 
'Essential reading for every thinking parent' Penelope Lively 
 
'An enlightening, perceptive analysis of the books that build us' Sunday Telegraph, 5 star review 
 
'A happy way to reconnect with old friends' Times

When I read Fierce Bad Rabbits, I thought, why has no one written this book before? But Clare Pollard has done so superbly - it is perceptive, illuminating, scholarly but at the same time entertaining. It should be essential reading for every thinking parent

This book is a happy way to reconnect with old friends

An enlightening, perceptive analysis of the books that build us

A gem . . . hard to put down. The combination of vast scholarly research and witty writing makes for a thoroughly enjoyable book. Pollard has managed to dissect all our favourite stories with her scalpel, while leaving their magic intact

Pollard is a poet, and her prose is stunning . . . she writes with a joy that is luminous. Essential reading for anyone with a child, or who ever was a child

Most people's primal cultural memory is that of being read to by a parent. This is a phenomenon most sensitively and intelligently explored in Fierce Bad Rabbits

Pollard so delicately enters into the world of [picture books] that the reader feels they are rediscovering once-loved landscapes

Delightful. As good a guide as you could hope for. It will make you think again about why you loved the children's stories that mean so much to you, and it will lead you to new discoveries too. . . A happy reconnection to the serious joys of childhood

A celebration of picture books and their artists to spark your own childhood memories

Clare Pollard is an award-winning poet and playwright based in London. She is the author of five poetry collections and the Editor of the Modern Poetry in Translation magazine. She is striving to build the perfect picture-book library for her two small children.

What is The Tiger Who Came to Tea really about? 
 How is Meg and Mog related to Polish embroidery? 
 And why does death in picture books involve being eaten? 
 
Fierce Bad Rabbits explores the stories behind our favourite picture books, weaving in tales of Clare Pollard's childhood reading and her re-discovery of the classic tales as a parent. Because the best picture books are far more complex than they seem - and darker too. Monsters can gobble up children and go unnoticed, power is not always used wisely, and the wild things are closer than you think.

Clare Pollard

Elegant and decadent, vulgar and clever, enchanting and dark. The love child of Angela Carter and Anaïs Nin - the book I really really needed

Compelling ... Vibrant ...The author’s sentences sing on the page with wit and intelligence ... This memorable novel reminds the reader of the enduring power of storytelling to transform and even save lives, then and now

Funny, filthy, dancingly clever ... A delectable confection of many-layered pleasures. A story of stories, storytellers, and the lurking dangers of fairytales, set against the lavish decadence of 1600s Versailles. I gobbled it all up

Joanna Quinn, author of THE WHALEBONE THEATRE

Original, fantastical, historical, and unputdownable

Karen Joy Fowler, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY BESIDE OURSELVES

Pollard evokes the intrigue, sophistication, scandal and danger of 17th-century France in this bawdy, brilliant book, as dark and delicious as the chocolate served at the modern fairies’ salons

Pollard [has a] sure touch, seamlessly blending humour and disgust ... a novel with oodles of charm

Lush and gossipy, rich and wonderfully indulgent. The Modern Fairies is wickedly playful yet lingers, with emotional truth, long after reading. A feast of a novel. I dare you to read it!

Those in search of a bawdy fairy tale should look no further

A delightfully raunchy romp ... This magnetic revisionist historical deserves a wide readership

A captivating work of historical fiction from a poet with an imagination perfect for the job ... Riotous ... Pollard, known for her evocative verse, brings a fresh perspective to age-old myths and legends with her inimitable wit. The prose is as luxurious as the subject matter, with the politics of the day and underlying tensions used to brilliant effect

The Modern Fairies gives us intimate access to the most prestigious of private Parisian salons. In a novel both aching and cruel, sumptuous and tender, Pollard’s beautiful writing leads us along winding pathways. Through its prickling branches to exquisite clearings of hope, this book consumed me.

Pollard vividly and powerfully evokes the tumult, passion, and creativity of this bygone era, crafting a tale that's both timeless and timely

Cold, clever, and glittering, this beautiful novel resembles both the court and the stories it depicts

Pollard's future, as a novelist, is very bright indeed

'Brilliant ... Born of searing eloquence and sinister wit'

Jackie Polzin, author of BROOD, praise for DELPHI

This feels impressive ... What good fiction is meant to do

Vivid as fireworks ... Both terrifying and exhilarating

Doireann Ní Ghríofa, author of A GHOST IN THE THROAT, praise for DELPHI

Freewheeling and ingenious ... I was captivated

Marina Warner, New Statesman Books of the Year

Versailles, 1682: a city of the rich, a living fairy-tale, Louis XIV's fever dream. It's a place of opulence, beauty, and power. But strip back the lavish exterior of polite society, and you'll find a dark undercurrent of sexual intrigue and vicious gossip. Nobody is safe here - no matter how highly born they are. 
 
No one knows this better than Madame Marie d'Aulnoy. Each week, a rogue group of intellectuals gather at her Parisian home to debate, flirt and perform Contes de Fées - fairy tales - that challenge the status quo, at a salon that will change the course of literature forever. But while they weave tales of glass slippers, enchanted beasts and long-haired princesses, a wolf is lurking, who threatens to destroy the members of the salon one by one. 
 
Brilliant and bawdy, romantic and provocative, The Modern Fairies is a dazzling novel inspired by real events, about the delights and dangers of storytelling in dark times.

Clare Pollard

Praise for The Modern Fairies

Elegant and decadent, vulgar and clever, enchanting and dark. The love child of Angela Carter and Anaïs Nin - the book I really really needed

Compelling ... Vibrant ...The author’s sentences sing on the page with wit and intelligence ... This memorable novel reminds the reader of the enduring power of storytelling to transform and even save lives, then an ...

Funny, filthy, dancingly clever ... A delectable confection of many-layered pleasures. A story of stories, storytellers, and the lurking dangers of fairytales, set against the lavish decadence of 1600s ...

Elegant and decadent, vulgar and clever, enchanting and dark. The love child of Angela Carter and Anaïs Nin - the book I really really needed

Compelling ... Vibrant ...The author’s sentences sing on the page with wit and intelligence ... This memorable novel reminds the reader of the enduring power of storytelling to transform and even save lives, then an ...

Funny, filthy, dancingly clever ... A delectable confection of many-layered pleasures. A story of stories, storytellers, and the lurking dangers of fairytales, set against the lavish decadence of 1600s ...

Elegant and decadent, vulgar and clever, enchanting and dark. The love child of Angela Carter and Anaïs Nin - the book I really really needed

Compelling ... Vibrant ...The author’s sentences sing on the page with wit and intelligence ... This memorable novel reminds the reader of the enduring power of storytelling to transform and even save lives, then an ...

Funny, filthy, dancingly clever ... A delectable confection of many-layered pleasures. A story of stories, storytellers, and the lurking dangers of fairytales, set against the lavish decadence of 1600s ...

Books by Clare Pollard

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