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Saba Sams was raised in Brighton and now lives in London. She was selected for Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2023 and The Sunday Times’ Young Power List in 2025. Her short story collection Send Nudes was awarded the Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2022 and was shortlisted for the University of Swansea International Dylan Thomas Prize 2023. The story ‘Blue 4eva’ from the collection was awarded the BBC National Short Story Award. Send Nudes was selected as a book of the year by the Guardian, Stylist, Vogue, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Evening Standard, Irish Independent, AnOther, Foyles and bookshop.org, and was named a Sunday Times paperback of the year in 2023.Saba Sams made waves with <i>Send Nudes ...</i> Now the 28-year-old author has written her first novel, about the bond between two women from different generations - and what happens when a baby arrives in the mix
SUNDAY TIMES, The 40 books to look out for in 2025 — the critics’ picks
A fresh look at unconventional relationships and chosen family by the author of the award-winning story collection <i>Send Nudes</i>
GUARDIAN, the books to look forward to in 2025
Gunk, the scuzzy nightclub.<i> Gunk</i>, the shining, beautiful novel. This exceptional exploration of love and possibility remained with me long after I'd finished reading
- WENDY ERSKINE,
A literary wunderkind ... Acutely observed and tight in focus
HARPERS BAZAAR, Five debut female authors to read in 2025
An intimate and tender exploration of love’s possibilities, of the shapes it can find and create inside people, of how it is always surprising us. Its’s a novel both quietly devastating and shimmeringly, acutely, observed
- SOPHIE MACKINTOSH,
Compulsively readable, intelligent and strange, <i>Gunk</i> is a beautiful and original exploration of what it means to be in kinship with other people. This is a striking and special book
- OISÍN McKENNA,
From the writer of <i>Send Nudes</i> comes the novel <i>Gunk.</i> Yes, we are obsessed with the title. The novel explores the multi-layered relationship between two women, Jules and Nim
COSMOPOLITAN, The 25 books we can't wait to read in 2025
This tender fictional debut by celebrated essayist Sams looks at blended families and nontraditional life choices. Prepare for one of the best birth scenes written on the page along with an original and ageless relationship between two women, Jules and Nim, who meet each other behind the bar at Brighton nightclub Gunk. This will make you think differently about parenting, friendships and the goals we set in life
ELLE, The Cult Books We Can’t Wait To Read In 2025
An electrifying debut novel ... We loved Sams’ first book <i>Send Nudes</i> ... <i>Gunk </i>feels as though it will be the next talked-about step into Sams’ exploration of womanhood – and we can’t wait to join the discussion
SERVICE95
Saba Sams’s short story collection, <i>Send Nudes</i>, caused a stir upon its release in 2022. Since then, she’s won the BBC National Short Story Award and been named one of Granta’s best young British novelists, so it’s safe to say that expectations are high for her debut novel. <i>Gunk</i> is set around a scuzzy student nightclub in Brighton and explores the tangled mess of relationships that emerge between exes Jules and Leon, and 19-year-old bar staffer Nim
independent.co.uk, The best books to look out for in 2025
An immersive story about love and the softening borders around what family can be
- SHEENA PATEL,
When this landed, I immediately abandoned all other books and dove head-first ... Following two women whose connection sits somewhere between friendship and chosen family, we’re taken through the timeline of their relationship when one takes off without a word after giving birth. I read the book over a weekend and found it incredibly moving
REFINERY29
I loved this ... A really delicate portrait of motherhood, the limits we (rightly or wrongly) place on our loved ones, and how those most willing to care for others may be the most ready to deny care for themselves
- NICOLA DINAN,
Saba Sams finds beauty in grit and dirt. She elevates sticky dance floors, dirty bedsits and scuzzy seaside towns, drawing attention to the meaning our lives make from within the mundane.<i> Gunk</i> is a nuanced exploration of friendship, queerness and love, challenging our perceptions of what it means to be a mother, and what it means to care
- JESSICA ANDREWS,
A vital, glowing, addictive book. I inhaled it; loved it; didn't want it to end
- LUCY JONES,
<i>Gunk</i> is a deliciously offbeat dance through motherhood, romance and friendship. Like a great short story, there's hope and freedom in its singularity. I'll read everything Saba Sams writes
- ANNA METCALFE,
<i>Gunk</i> is the first novel from Saba Sams (<i>Send Nudes</i>), exploring love and family. Jules has been divorced from her ex-husband Leon for five years, but she still works alongside him at Gunk, the grotty student nightclub he owns in Brighton
IRISH TIMES
A beautifully constructed and perfectly written novel that shows there are no rules and no limits on a) love and b) what we might create (what we might birth) if we out aside old stuff and open ourselves up to the new. So special
- JESSICA STANLEY,
<b>Praise for Saba Sams:</b> Saba Sams is a fresh new voice in fiction, wry and sharp and raw
- EMMA CLINE,
Saba Sams’s unsettling, full-throated fiction captures girls and young women on the brink of change
GUARDIAN, Books of the Year
Spare, sharp and empathetic, brimful of emotion, energy and empathy
DAILY MAIL
Sams digs into the chaos, euphoria and menace of sexual attraction, friendship and family with bravery and wit. The balance her prose strikes between observation and empathy is remarkable, and its rhythms irresistible
- CHRIS POWER,
Exploring the uneven, hazardous terrain between girlhood and womanhood, Sams expertly reveals its inherent contradictions – the rawness and intense vulnerability of teetering on the edge of something new coupled with the power and euphoria that come with self-discovery … Sams’ unflinching observation yet tender empathy for each of her characters sets her apart as a bold new talent
STYLIST, Books of the Week
The earthy resilience and joie de vivre of these stories make for an exhilarating debut ... Sams joins the ranks of writers such as Megan Nolan and Frances Leviston with these acute portraits of the fragile intimacies and euphoric moments snatched by a generation of women coming of age into a precarious future ... In spare, rhythmic sentences, this exhilarating collection captures the light and dark of negotiating relationships, solitude, sexuality and loss
GUARDIAN
An ode to the women you drunkenly befriend in club toilets, <i>Send Nudes</i> is an astonishing selection of short stories charting the ebb and flow of girlhood. Saba Sams' authoritative yet witty tone of voice shines through, rendering this one of the most exciting books to come out of 2022
GLAMOUR, Books of the Year 2022
Girlhood, womanhood and everything in between. Ten glorious stories – set in clubs at closing time, pub toilets, sweaty music festivals and hazy beach holidays – of young, feral women who are navigating the complexities of growing up, friendships and truly living in their own bodies
REFINERY29, The Ultimate Gen Z Book Guide For Surviving 2022
A visceral and compulsive writer, Saba Sams’ ten short stories slalom through the pulsing veins of romance, rejection, and resistance to a world that attempts to box in every young woman. Painfully familiar feelings are dredged up, but it’s so utterly compelling it can be consumed in one sitting. I have fallen in love with Sams’ feral women, found in club toilets, on beach towels, in ferocious friendships, navigating tense family dynamics and body politics
AnOTHER
Saba Sams’ writing is dark and glittering. Her collection twists the world on its axis and filters it through an unsettling light. Her precise, wry sentences and sticky, uncompromising characters got beneath my skin
- JESSICA ANDREWS,
Unfalteringly different, ensnaring, often frightening stories about characters caught between childhood and adulthood, who are feeling out their boundaries, desires and limits for the first time. Sams’ writing is intoxicating
- CLAIRE KOHDA, author of Woman, Eating,
**Selected as a 2025 book to look out for by the Guardian, Sunday Times, Irish Times, independent.co.uk, Cosmopolitan, Elle and Service95**
‘Raw, original and provoking, Saba Sams is Britain's brightest debut novelist’ Vogue
‘An immersive story about love and the softening borders around what family can be’ Sheena Patel
‘An intimate and tender exploration of love's possibilities’ Sophie Mackintosh
‘A nuanced exploration of friendship, queerness and love’ Jessica Andrews
‘I loved this’ Nicola Dinan
Jules has been divorced from her ex-husband Leon for five years, but she still works alongside him at Gunk, the grotty student nightclub he owns in central Brighton. She spends her nights serving shots and watching, from behind the bar, as Leon flirts with students on the dancefloor.
But then Leon hires nineteen-year-old Nim to work the bar – and her arrival jolts Jules awake for the first time in years. When Nim discovers she’s pregnant, Jules agrees to help. As the months pass, and the relationship between the two women grows increasingly intimate and perplexing, it emerges that Nim has her own unexpected gifts to give.
Now, alone in her small flat, Jules is holding a baby, just twenty-four hours old, who still smells of Nim. But no one knows where Nim is, or if she’s coming back. What could the future – for Jules, Nim, and this unnamed baby – possibly look like?
Raw, exhilarating, tender and wise, Gunk is an electrifying debut novel exploring love and desire, safety and destruction, chaos and control – and family in all its forms.