Join award-winning author Saba Sams, selected for Granta's Best of Young British Novelists 2023, as she presents her electrifying debut novel Gunk, an exploration of love, desire, and the unexpected paths to motherhood.

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?

Interviewed by author and critic, Madeleine Feeny, this evening promises to be as vibrant and unexpected as the novel itself. Discover how the messiest parts of life can become the most meaningful.