About the Book
**Winner of the Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2022**
**Winner of the BBC National Short Story Award 2022**
**Longlisted for the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize 2023**
A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR
'Sensual, witty, audacious, belligerent, dangerous brilliance' GUARDIAN
'A fresh new voice in fiction, wry and sharp and raw' EMMA CLINE
'I still remember where I was when I first encountered a Saba Sams story' NICOLE FLATTERY
'I fell for this stunning collection with a rare, consuming passion' MEGAN NOLAN
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In ten dazzling stories, Saba Sams dives into the world of girlhood and immerses us in its contradictions and complexities: growing up too quickly, yet not quickly enough; taking possession of what one can, while being taken possession of; succumbing to societal pressure but also orchestrating that pressure. These young women are feral yet attentive, fierce yet vulnerable, exploited yet exploitative.
Threading between clubs at closing time, pub toilets, drenched music festivals and beach holidays, these unforgettable short stories deftly chart the treacherous terrain of growing up – of intense friendships, of ambivalent mothers, of uneasily blended families, and of learning to truly live in your own body.
With striking wit, originality and tenderness, Send Nudes celebrates the small victories in a world that tries to claim each young woman as its own.
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'A roiling, raw, gut-punch of a debut collection, best read in one sitting ... I sat motionless for about half an hour after reading them; I can't wait to see what she writes next' PANDORA SYKES
'A seriously impressive debut. Saba Sams digs into the chaos, euphoria and menace of sexual attraction, friendship and family with bravery and wit' CHRIS POWER
CHOSEN AS A BOOK OF THE 2022 BY THE GUARDIAN, STYLIST, VOGUE, GLAMOUR, COSMOPOLITAN, EVENING STANDARD, IRISH INDEPENDENT, AnOTHER, FOYLES, BOOKSHOP.ORG
About the Author :
SABA SAMS has been published in the Stinging Fly, Granta and Five Dials, among others. She was shortlisted for the White Review Short Story Prize in 2019. Send Nudes won the Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2022, and ‘Blue 4eva’ won the BBC National Short Story Award 2022. She is from Brighton.
Review :
Saba Sams is a fresh new voice in fiction, wry and sharp and raw
Saba Sams’s unsettling, full-throated Send Nudes captures girls and young women on the brink of change
Sams is the real deal ... Sensual, witty, audacious, belligerent, dangerous brilliance.
Spare, sharp and empathetic, these stories are brimful of emotion, energy and empathy
An original, engrossing collection ... Young women still working out who to be will also find clarity in this original, engrossing collection
Ten startlingly original stories that … seem to come out of nowhere and clamp their jaws shut around you. 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
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
An ode to the women you drunkenly befriend in club toilets, Send Nudes 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
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
A collection of short stories that speak to the female experiencer
In ten quickfire stories, Brighton-born Saba Sams conjures up the spaces between lovers, the visceral attraction and the damning rejection. Read in one sitting and you’ll be transported to moments in your past, to scenes you instantly recognise but may have deliberately forgotten; a must-read for 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
A razor-sharp debut
I still remember where I was when I first encountered a Saba Sams story. She is an instinctive storyteller attuned to the ordinary details that make up a life. A highly perceptive and intelligent writer
Acclaimed by Emma Cline, Nicole Flattery and Megan Nolan, this debut short story collection from 25-year-old British author Saba Sams announces the arrival of a striking new talent … Wry, visceral, astute, they capture the intensity of adolescent self-consciousness and fledgling experience
If you’ve made it your 2022 mission to cut down on screen time, there’s no shortage of brilliant new fiction to scratch the escapist itch that social media has left. Send Nudes by Saba Sams is a collection of short stories perfect for those who are pressed for time (and attention span), all focused on the world of girlhood and growing up as a woman (fans include Emma Cline and Megan Nolan)
Beautiful, compressed, fleeting
A roiling, raw, gut-punch of a debut collection, best read in one sitting. Sams conveys the suffocation of being and the longing to break free - from parents, partners, children, convention, your own self - in tender, spare prose. I sat motionless for about half an hour after reading them; I can't wait to see what she writes next.
Send Nudes is a seriously impressive debut. Saba 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
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
I really liked Saba Sams' spare, blunt style and her quirky take on adolescence and young womanhood. The stories covered such a wide range of moods and experiences and the various humiliations and disappointments were treated with a wonderfully clear and unsentimental eye ... I hope this collection brings her lots of new readers
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
In Send Nudes Saba Sams provides an alluring glimpse into contemporary life by presenting familiar experiences in entirely new and electrifying prose
Ten short stories about the treacherous terrain of growing up, learning to live in your body, friendships, mothers and blended families introduce a promising debut author, whose work has appeared in The Stinging Fly
Witty, compelling and engaging, this collection is an intriguing one that offers a perceptive insight into young women’s internal lives. Recommended for fans of contemporary, slightly offbeat short stories
A simple, sharp and chaotic collection of stories, exploring family, friendship, belonging and sexual tension ... Bus stop conversations, canine affinity, the buzz of festival life – the brilliance lies not in the big life-altering moments, but these fragments in which they’re captured. A punchy, sharp collection
