Hexes of the Deadwood Forest: ‘Bold, surreal, feminist & ferociously funny’ Service95

‘You’re holding a torpedo of a book in your hand. Take a seat and get comfortable. This novel’s energy, humour and rebel spirit will awaken your mind and change your way of thinking’ Olga Tokarczuk

Anna Frenza hates the tyrannical tree huggers and idiotic eco-warriors, after all, she’s CEO of Poland’s biggest oil company. But when she finds herself sleepwalking into the woods and making love to a tree, all caught on camera, her career comes to an abrupt end. Her mind splinters and, whether by delusion or possession of spirit, she finds herself in a medieval province ruled by the Catholic Church.

Deep in the past, she falls in with Mathilde Spalt, leader of the Earthen Ones – a congregation of women who live in the woods and reject all patriarchy. Instead engaging in the ecstatic, sensuous worship of Mother Earth. Anna learns to love the forest she had once dismissed . . . until the Church decides to fell the trees and all the women within it.

Bold and entirely unexpected, Hexes of the Deadwood Forest is a collective rebellion, the death knell to the elevation of the erect. Take hold of your seat; patriarchy is coming to an end.

‘A work of funny, shocking and deeply affecting feminist satire. Tokarczuk’s own Drive Your Plow is the most obvious comparison, but Hexes is a genuinely, fiercely original work’ Foyles, Top Ten Reads for May