Photo by Barney Cokeliss

China Miéville is one of the most established writers on this year’s Goldsmiths Prize shortlist. He is an award-winning and bestselling author of fiction and nonfiction. Miéville’s novels fall within the realm of science-fiction, for which he has won numerous prestigious awards. The City & The City (2009) won the international Hugo Award – also held by the likes of Isaac Asimov, JK Rowling and Philip K Dick – while Perdido Street Station (2000) won the the Arthur C Clarke Award. His latest novel The Rouse (2026) is described as “a monumental work” by Hari Kunru, one of the judges of this year’s Goldsmiths Prize panel.

The Rouse is a novel that combines speculations about what awaits us after we die with the history of Britain’s postcolonial entanglements in the second half of the 20 th century. Maur, the book’s protagonist, is plagued by loss and misfortune. But things are not what they seem.…