The Institute for Creative Dying
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United Kingdom
United States
South Africa
Synopsis
You wouldn’t know it was there, the unnumbered house behind the iron-grille gate, just below the craggy rocks of Northcliff ridge. To the untrained eye the rambling property might seem neglected, with its tangle of trees and untamed indigenous bush. But there is purpose here, and a peaceful, subterranean focus on all that withers and dies.
Five strangers—a model, a former nun, a couple in crisis, and an offender newly released from prison—have come here, to this place, to discover an end to life as they’ve known it. Placing their trust in their hosts, the Mortician and Mustafa, the five open their minds and bodies to an alternative experience. Not all of them will survive—or at least not in the way they imagined—but all of them will be shown the limits of their living.
The Institute for Creative Dying is vivid and visceral, unique in its bold and imaginative exploration of mortality and the interconnectedness of all forms of being.
Praise
‘This is everything that a great and impactful debut novel should be – brilliant, daring and ambitious.’
Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu, award-winning author
‘Rendered in vivid and highly imaginative detail, this story – seemingly about death – offers new understandings about what it truly means to be alive. Thompson is one of the most promising voices on the African continent.’
Rémy Ngamije, author of The Eternal Audience of One
‘Equal parts morbid and miraculous, this novel explores the intricacies and intimacies of death and dying in wholly original ways. The result is an astonishing, unique piece of work.’
Megan Ross, writer
‘Jarred Thompson proves why he’s one of South Africa’s most daring young writers. Macabre, weird, zany and decidedly ominous, this gutsy debut novel explores the ethics of death and the value of life.’
Khanya Mtshali, writer and cultural critic
Jarred Thompson
JARRED was the winner of the 2020 Afritondo Prize and has been the recipient of several prestigious scholarships, including The Global Excellence and Stature Scholarship, The Chris van Wyk Creative Writing Scholarship, two National Arts Council Grants and an NRF nGAP Scholarship.
He is a literary and cultural studies researcher and educator and works as a lecturer in the English Department at the University of Pretoria. The Institute for Creative Dying is his debut novel.