Fern Press

This truly landmark book – UNGROUNDING: The Architecture of Genocide by Eyal Weizman – publishes today. Eyal Weizman is one of the world’s leading experts on the relationship between violence, conflict and the environment, both built and natural. As director of the organisation Forensic Architecture, he and his team of interdisciplinary researchers document acts of state crimes and human rights violations around the world. Since 2023, the group has worked to produce evidence for the International Court of Justice’s genocide case against Israel. In this revelatory new project, Weizman draws on that research to bring us on an eye-opening journey across time and into the ‘deep cartography’ of the area extending from Gaza’s subterranean tunnels through to its militarised topography, its unique soil, settlements and barriers. He catalogues, in unflinching and forensic detail, the Israeli campaigns of violence and displacement that have reshaped the region in an effort to make Gaza and its surrounding areas unliveable. Taking us through the broader geographic and historical context, from the Nakba in 1948 to the present day, UNGROUNDING establishes that architectural and territorial analysis is key to understanding the relationship between coloniser and colonised – and how Israel’s actions after 7 October escalated into violence so extreme and so far-reaching as to, Weizman argues, meet the definition of genocide. Deeply informative and profoundly affecting in its scope and precision, and illustrated with dozens of original images, maps and diagrams, UNGROUNDING is an essential document of atrocity in our time. ‘UNGROUNDING by Eyal Weizman proves that decolonisation is not revenge but a condition for justice and, in the end, for the liberation of both Palestinians and Israelis’ FRANCESCA ALBANESE (@francesca.albanese.unsr.opt ) ‘Urgent and essential reading’ DAVID WENGROW ‘Extraordinary’ ILAN PAPPÉ (@ilan.pappe ) ‘Ultimately lays the foundations for an architecture of liberation’ TAREQ BACONI @eyal_weizman @forensicarchitecture @vintagebooks @aitkenalexander

Introducing our Fiction Book of the Month for May—Audition by Katie Kitamura! Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, young – young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately. Bookseller Scott says it is ‘a gripping exploration of identity, performance and complex relationships, and a nuanced and reflective psychological thriller that is possibly Kitamura’s best yet!’ #FoylesBookshop #FictionBookOfTheMonth #Audition #KatieKitamura

Congratulations to Omer Bartov, whose book, ISRAEL: WHAT WENT WRONG?, is a finalist for this year’s Orwell Prize for Political Writing. Professor Omer Bartov was born on a kibbutz, grew up in Tel Aviv and served in the Israel Defence Forces during the Yom Kippur War. He went on to become an expert on the German army and the Holocaust, before turning his attention to his native country. ISRAEL: WHAT WENT WRONG? is a searing and urgent critique that addresses today’s debates over Zionism, genocide, and the future of Israel with rigour and depth. ‘Perceptive, sophisticated, erudite, elegantly written and strikingly fair-minded’ Avi Shlaim, GUARDIAN ‘Anyone disturbed and frightened by our current moral and intellectual morass should read this’ Pankaj Mishra ‘Gripping in its moral clarity and sweeping knowledge’ Michael Sfard, human rights lawyer ‘Brilliant, unique, timely and thought-provoking’ Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development ‘A clear-eyed work of moral reckoning’ PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY, starred review @bartovomer @vintagebooks @theorwellprize

This beautiful and personal book is out now in paperback! In PATHEMATA, Maggie Nelson writes through chronic pain and a moment of collective uncertainty, asking how the body, language and memory shape the way we move through the world. Searching, tender and often darkly funny, PATHEMATA is a meditation on loss, connection and resilience by the beloved author of BLUETS and THE ARGONAUTS. Cover design by @suzanneldean . @janklownesbit @janklownesbituk @pjmark.books @vintagebooks #books #poetry #chronicpain #maggienelson #bluets

Proofs of KOLKHOZ have landed! In his most ambitious work to date, Emmanuel Carrère – bestselling author of THE ADVERSARY and THE MOUSTACHE – turns to the subject closest to him: his own family, and, at the centre of it, his mother. The result is something quite extraordinary – a book that feels as urgent as it is intimate. Part family story, part historical reckoning, it moves from aristocratic Russia to Soviet Central Asia, tracing a lineage shaped by exile, ideology and memory. It asks what it means to inherit both love and history, and whether telling the truth about either is ever simple. A major bestseller in France, KOLKHOZ was awarded the Prix Médicis in 2025. Translated by John Lambert. KOLKHOZ publishes September 2026. Cover design by @suzanneldean . @vintagebooks @editions_pol

What a delight to welcome Katie Kitamura, our current Fiction Book of the Month author to the shop to share her #FoylesFour! Here’s what she chose: —The Dry Heart by Natalia Ginzburg, tr. Frances Frenaye —Mild Vertigo by Mieko Kanai, tr. Polly Barton —The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford —Ruins, Child by Giada Scodellaro AUDITION is out now, an exhilarating, destabilising novel that asks whether we ever really know the people we love. #FoylesBookshop #KatieKitamura #Audition #NewFiction

We are delighted that two Fern Press authors have been selected as finalists for the 2026 Pulitzer Prizes: Katie Kitamura and Rachel Aviv! The Pulitzer Prizes are awarded annually for outstanding achievements in journalism, literature, drama and music. Katie Kitamura’s Booker Prize-shortlisted and Women’s Prize-longlisted novel, AUDITION, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, while Rachel Aviv’s ‘Second Life’, published in the NEW YORKER, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing. ‘Second Life’ is featured in Aviv’s YOU WON’T GET FREE OF IT (July 2026). Congratulations to Katie, Rachel and all the winners and finalists! @_katiekitamura @rsaviv @pjmark.books @janklownesbituk @janklownesbit @vintagebooks

Join us on 13 May for a discussion at Goldsmiths, University of London marking the launch of FA Director and Professor Eyal Weizman’s forthcoming book, Ungrounding: The Architecture of Genocide. Our director will speak on the research that informs his book, departing from our team’s work with the South African legal team on the genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice and locating the genocide within a century-long history of the Southwestern coast of Palestine. This discussion will be followed by a conversation with Başak Ertür (Reader in the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths), Suhail Malik (Programme Co-Director MFA Fine Art and Reader in Critical Studies at Goldsmiths), Matthew Fuller (Professor of Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths), Nour Abuzaid (Senior Researcher at Forensic Architecture), and Kodwo Eshun (Lecturer in the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths), moderated by Susan Schuppli (Director and Professor in the Centre for Research Architecture). Ungrounding: The Architecture of Genocide examines Gaza’s ‘deep cartography’, from subterranean tunnels and militarised topography, to its unique soil, settlements, and barriers. Within broader geographic and historical context, from the Nakba to present day, the book documents Israeli campaigns of displacement and destruction that have reshaped the region in an effort to make Gaza and its surrounding areas unliveable. The event will take place in the Ian Gulland Lecture Theatre, beginning at 7pm, followed by a reception with light refreshments and a book table operated by @wordbookshop This event is free and open to the public. RSVP at the link in our bio.

An in-depth interview with Eyal Weizman, author of UNGROUNDING and director of Forensic Architecture, now online at the OBSERVER. UNGROUNDING will publish on 7 May 2026. @aitkenalexander @vintagebooks

‘A rare combination of painful personal intimacy and impeccable scholarship. Anyone disturbed by our current moral and intellectual morass should read it’ PANKAJ MISHRA ‘Gripping in its moral clarity and sweeping knowledge’ MICHAEL SFARD, human rights lawyer ‘Brilliant, unique, timely and thought-provoking’ SHIBLEY TELHAMI, Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development ‘A clear-eyed work of moral reckoning’ PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY, starred review ISRAEL: WHAT WENT WRONG? by Omer Bartov is out this week. Cover design by @typeasimage @vintagebooksuk @bartovomer

This ‘lightning bolt of a novel’ is out in paperback this week. AUDITION was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025, longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2026, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and one of Barack Obama’s favourite books of the year. 🟠🔵 One woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. An exhilarating, destabilising novel that asks whether we ever really know the people we love. Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, young – young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day – partner, parent, creator, muse – and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately. Taut and hypnotic, AUDITION is Katie Kitamura at her virtuosic best. @cwagencyuk @vintagebooks @_katiekitamura

‘A richly told history of empire from which we cannot turn away’ AFUA HIRSCH (@afuahirsch ) ‘Ambitious, powerfully argued and beautifully shaped, written, illustrated and produced’ ROBERT GILDEA ‘Anyone seeking to understand the upsurge of racial imperialism in our own time cannot afford to miss this book’ PANKAJ MISHRA ‘[An] ambitious and arresting work of impressive historical scope and scale’ TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT ‘I’d have loved to have read such a book when I was a schoolboy’ Colin Grant, OBSERVER THE BRITISH EMPIRE IS OFTEN TREATED AS DISTANT HISTORY. BUT WHAT IF IT NEVER TRULY ENDED? EMPIRE WITHOUT END is a sweeping history of the Caribbean and its deeply entangled relationship with Britain. From the transatlantic slave trade to emancipation, indenture, rebellion, migration and Black Power, it traces how a racial-caste hierarchy was forged in the Caribbean – and how its legacies continue to shape both the region and Britain today. Moving between plantation societies and Westminster, Morant Bay and Windrush Britain, this powerful and provocative book shows how racism and capitalism grew together, how decolonisation failed to dismantle entrenched inequalities, and how the structures of empire were reconfigured rather than undone. Urgent, deeply researched and boldly argued, this is a vital rethinking of British and Caribbean history – and a challenge to comforting myths about imperial decline. EMPIRE WITHOUT END publishes in paperback on 4 June. Cover design by @jamespauljones @aitkenalexander @vintagebooks