severbabylon

Sever Babylon (2023) is a short story which won The Space Crone Prize for speculative and science short fiction awarded by Silver Press and The Ursula K. Le Guin Literary Trust, selected by a panel including Sophia Al Maria, India Downes-Le Guin, So Mayer, Una McCormack, Josie Mitchell, Nisha Ramayya, Sarah Shin, Angelique Tran Van Sang and Isabel Waidner, and subsequently published by Granta.

In a near future, the abuse of language by humans has resulted in the body establishing a new means of communication via the swapping of organs.

"When we fucked, language blistered. The silvering of our shared aura broke a sweat that slid down to our heels. We flared the same colour, as our hearts jumped out of our chests. We briefly swapped them, something I had never done before. Afterwards, I thought of their heart often, wanting to feel it heavy inside my chest again. My identity has always been in flux, gathering pace, gaining, losing . . . But it was in their shifting skin that I first recognised both myself and the world."