Supplication
Nour Abi-Nakhoul

'Supplication is as visceral and gripping as an actual nightmare, but also teeming with wisdom about selfhood and trauma.'
– Ainslie Hogarth, author of Motherthing

'Supplication is a highly sophisticated philosophical exploration of identity propelled by a surreal sense of the interconnectedness of random events. The prose style is both compelling and unsettling, with imagery that works as a kind of unique narrative hypnotism. An outstanding debut novel.'
—Kerry Hadley-Pryce, author of God’s Country

‘A relentless dive into the darkest corners of a troubled mind; but this is how all literary horror should be, challenging, disquieting and utterly immersive.’
– Matt Wesolowski, author of Six Stories

‘There, within the suddenness of the unending present, I was born.’

An unnamed narrator comes to in a basement, tied to a chair, a man looming over her. Someone has a knife.

She emerges from her captivity into a mysterious and nightmarish city, searching for meaning in her new reality.

As figures emerge from the night, some offering sanctuary, and others judgement, she moves through a fever-dream narrative of alienation, fear, and the quest for respite.

Nour Abi-Nakhoul’s powerful debut novel, Supplication, is a hallucinatory literary horror set deep in the consciousness of a woman exploring a changed and frightening world.

Praise for Supplication

'It's an entirely disorienting thing, designed to completely eviscerate readers. It's something so consuming, the only option is to drown in it.'
– Baphomet’s Bookseller

‘Blending the recollective descriptions of Marcel Proust with the inventiveness of avant-garde filmmaker Maya Deren, Abi-Nakhoul is interested in the underexplored capabilities of the novel.’
– Toronto Star

‘This is a novel in which bodies are meat machines that resist control, and in which connection and communication are next to impossible – prevented by a kind of anomie and alienation that operates even on the atomic level.’
– Civilian Global

‘I feel like I’ve been waiting for this book all my adult life. Ferocious, clinical, brilliant and heart stopping, this book is an evocation of womanhood, identity and Trauma as the inaugurating event.’
— Heidi James, author of The Sound Mirror and Wounding

‘Dreamy yet hard, propulsive yet ever-circling, Nour Abi-Nakhoul's Supplication reveals its mysteries slowly and painfully, as if withdrawing a dagger from its own viscera.’
—Davey Davis, author of X

‘What an astonishing, indelible, and courageous book. I have never read anything like it. It entered my bloodstream. It takes every risk. Supplication is about the states of transformation women must endure and survive–every trial, loss, ascension, surrender, inhabitation is written so completely in its animal radiance, sensuality and horror; the page can hardly hold the prose. The voice never breaks. Nour Abi-Nakhoul is a beautiful writer, conveying a hellscape, her sentences as direct as they are prismatic. So transforming, compulsive and original.’
— Claudia Dey, author of Heartbreaker

‘Terrifying and poetic, Supplication twists the existentialism of Sartre’s Nausea into a dark and disturbing form. Simultaneously cinematic horror and interior meditation, this book is as disorienting as Kafka at his most absurd. A philosophical reflection on the nature of selfhood and discontinuity that somehow manages to be both timeless and irresistibly urgent.’
—Carrie Jenkins, author of Sad Love

‘Full of foreboding and committed to depicting the extremes of interiority and the stinging incursions of the world into the self, Supplication evokes the work of Poe and Sadeq Hedayat while remaining alien and new.’

—Naben Ruthnum, author of The Grimmer 

About the Author

Nour Abi-Nakhoul is a writer and editor based in Montreal. Her work has appeared in a variety of Canadian and American publications. Supplication is her first novel. 

Paperback ISBN: 9781910312650

Ebook ISBN: 9781910312667

Publication date: June 2024

Formats: Paperback / eBook