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Simon Okotie

Simon Okotie’s novels Whatever Happened to Harold Absalon?, In the Absence of Absalon and After Absalon are published by Salt. ‘Fiction as original as this deserves a long shelf life’ (the London Review of Books). ‘Bindings’ and ‘When viewed from the head rather than the foot’ were selected for the Best British Short Stories 2021 and 2025, respectively. The Future of the Novel, a book-length essay, is published by Melville House. Simon was a Creative Fellow at the Samuel Beckett Research Centre at the University of Reading for 2022-23 (where he has since completed his PhD) and the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at City St George’s, University of London, for 2023-25. He was a judge for the 2022 Manchester Fiction Prize, the 2024 Orwell Prize for political fiction, and the 2025 Goldsmiths Prize for fiction that ‘breaks the mould’.