Winner of the 2024 UJ Debut Prize for Books and shortlisted for the Sunday Times Literary Awards Fiction Prize, The Institute for Creative Dying is a vivid and visceral exploration of mortality and the interconnectedness of all forms of being.
Hidden behind an iron-grille gate, just below the craggy rocks of Northcliff ridge, lies an unnumbered house. 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 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 a bold and imaginative debut, unique in its exploration of death, grief, loss, and the edgy, gothic world of palliative care and academia.
