Joelle Taylor: The Night Alphabet

Joelle Taylor performs a staged reading from her debut novel The Night Alphabet, directed by Neil Bartlett. Part of Lyra – Bristol Poetry Festival 2024. 

Hackney, 2233: a woman walks into a tattoo parlour. Her body is covered all over with tattoos, but she wants to add one final inking to her gallery – a thin line connecting the haunting images of her body art together. If you follow this strand, what narrative do these images tell you?

The Night Alphabet is set across geographies and timespans, replete with literary fireworks. It is a furious, gripping, dazzlingly original novel and a deep and bold investigation into violence, resilience and women’s stories. It is published by Riverrun in February 2024.

Joelle Taylor is the author of four collections of poetry. Her most recent, C+NTO & Othered Poems, won the 2021 TS Eliot Prize, the 2022 Polari Book Prize for LGBT authors, and is currently being adapted for the theatre.