Ruins, Child

Synopsis

Set in what may be the near future, Ruins, Child follows six women living together in a crumbling apartment tower, where survival depends as much on community as it does on endurance. Their lives unfold through fragments of conversation, memory, folklore, movement, and observation, creating a rich mosaic that blurs the boundaries between individual and collective experience. As the city around them decays, the women forge new ways of seeing, listening, and imagining a future beyond the ruins.

Winner of the 2024 Novel Prize, Giada Scodellaro's debut novel is a bold and formally inventive work that resists easy classification. Drawing on Black history, urban landscapes, choreography, and oral storytelling, Ruins, Child is a lyrical meditation on resistance, belonging, and the power of communal life. Beautifully original and deeply atmospheric, it announces an exciting new literary voice.

About the Author

Giada Scodellaro is an Italian-born writer and artist who was raised in the Bronx, New York. Her debut collection, Some of Them Will Carry Me, was named one of The New Yorker's Best Books of 2022. A recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship, her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, BOMB, Granta, and Brick. Ruins, Child, winner of the 2024 Novel Prize, is her debut novel.

Publisher

New Directions Publishing

Publication Date

April 7, 2026

Format

Paperback

Pages

128

Subjects

Literary Fiction · Experimental Fiction · Black Literature · Dystopian Fiction · Contemporary Fiction

ISBN

9780811240215