Ruins, Child

Winner of the 2024 Novel Prize, Giada Scodellaro’s Ruins, Child is an irreducibly original debut hybrid novel—a startlingly beautiful and unclassifiable book

Centered on six women sharing a space in a derelict apartment tower and set in what maybe the future, Ruins, Child is remarkable for its sweep, wit, and the sway of its liquid mosaic narrative, powered along by snatches of speech. “The woman is old, I hear children saying nearby, not in the way we consider all adults to be old, but real...