Gunk: Saba Sams in Conversation with Sarah Gwonyoma

Jules has been divorced from her ex-husband Leon for ­five years, but she still works alongside him at Gunk, the grotty student nightclub he owns in central Brighton. She spends her nights serving shots and watching, from behind the bar, as Leon flirts with students on the dancefloor.

But then Leon hires nineteen-year-old Nim to work the bar – and her arrival jolts Jules awake for the ­ first time in years. When Nim discovers she's pregnant, Jules agrees to help. As the months pass, and the relationship between the two women grows increasingly intimate and perplexing, it emerges that Nim has her own unexpected gifts to give.

Now, alone in her small flat, Jules is holding a baby, just twenty-four hours old, who still smells of Nim. But no one knows where Nim is, or if she's coming back. What could the future – for Jules, Nim, and this unnamed baby – possibly look like?

Raw, exhilarating, tender and wise, GUNK is an electrifying debut novel exploring love and desire, safety and destruction, chaos and control – and family in all its forms.

Saba Sams was raised in Brighton and now lives in London. She was selected for Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2023. The story ‘Blue 4eva’ from the collection was awarded the BBC National Short Story Award. Send Nudes was awarded the Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2022, was shortlisted for the Swansea University International Dylan Thomas Prize, and was named a Sunday Times paperback of the year in 2023.

Sarah Gwonyoma is a writer, book critic, and founder of the popular online platform What Sarah Read Next. With an acute eye for what the hottest books are, Sarah writes brilliant book reviews and has interviewed an array of notable authors on literary circuit; Douglas Stuart, Abi Morgan, Annie MacManus and Musa Okwonga, Ayobami Adebayo, Paul Murray and many more. In addition to her interviewing skills, Sarah was guest speaker at Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place Festival and has also been interviewed about her life and work on various platforms including Annie MacManus' podcast Changes. Sarah also runs the popular online book club, What We Read Next.