Strange Girls: Utterly unmissable literary fiction

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From the prize-winning author of The Giant Dark comes a beautiful exploration of the ties that bind us and the scars they leave when they break.

Aliyah and Ava arrive in England from opposite corners of the world with dreams built upon Emily Bronte, Brideshead Revisited and Richard Curtis films. Instead, in the shadow of their historic, fairytale campus, they get the sense that they don't belong. The two form a Vita-and-Virginia-like bond, building a world full of stories that they write together. For a time, they are inseparable in their identity as 'strange girls'. When the end of university looms, they will have to return to the world where a devotion like this seems impossible to maintain.

Years later, Aliyah has everything Ava wants - a room of her own and a publishing deal - and, worse, the thing Ava was certain neither of them had ever wanted: a sensible doctor husband. Arriving back in London for a mutual friend's hen party, Ava is desperate to unpack the truth of what she really meant to Aliyah.

Was what they had - whatever you call it - real

And what will become of the stories they tell themselves about one another

Reviews

A wonder of a novel. Tender and keen-eyed, with characters so lifelike you could reach out and touch them. Hasin's approach to storytelling remains singularly brilliant. I loved it. -- Amy Twigg, author of SPOILT CREATURES
Intimate yet mysterious, Strange Girls is a tense and enthralling portrait of a relationship that resists definition: friendship, romance, sisterhood. Hasin writes love in all its troubling forms with beautiful nuance, and this novel is an entire world unto itself. You'll hate to leave it. -- Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta, authors of FEAST WHILE YOU CAN
I adored Strange Girls. Beautifully written, Sarvat Hasin perfectly captures university life in the noughties, the all-consuming intimacy of closeted queer-coded relationships between young women, and the unbearable weight of unspoken feelings. PERFECTION. -- Alice Slater
Luminous, tender and near mythic in its retelling of a female friendship. Strange Girls perfectly captures our desire to be seen-through friendship, through writing, through life. This novel had its grip on my heart from the very first pages. -- Freya Bromley

Author Bio

Sarvat Hasin is from Pakistan. She has a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Oxford. Her first novel, This Wide Night, was published by Penguin India and longlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. Her second book You Can't Go Home Again was published in 2018 and featured in Vogue India's and The Hindu's best of the year lists. She won the Moth Writer's Retreat Bursary in 2018 and in 2019, Mo Siewcharran Prize for The Giant Dark which came out in 2021. Her essays and poetry have appeared in publications such as Outsiders, The Mays Anthology, English PEN, and Harper's Bazaar. She lives in London and works at the Almeida Theatre.