2022 Betty Trask Prize (nominee)
2022 British Book Award Debut Book of the Year (shortlist)
2022 Desmond Elliott Prize (nominee)
2022 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction (nominee)
2022 The Writers' Prize for Fiction (nominee)
2021 Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction (nominee)
2021 Goldsmiths Prize (nominee)
SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE 2021
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKS ARE MY BAG FICTION AWARD 2021
'Diamond-sharp, timely and urgent' Observer, Best Debuts of 2021
'Subtle, elegant, scorching... The literary debut of the summer' Vogue
'Virtuosic, exquisite, achingly unique' Guardian
'I'm full of the hope, on reading it, that this is the kind of book that doesn't just mark the moment things change, but also makes that change possible' Ali Smith
'Exquisite, daring, utterly captivating. A stunning new writer' Bernardine Evaristo
Come of age in the credit crunch. Be civil in a hostile environment. Step out into a world of Go Home vans. Go to Oxbridge, get an education, start a career. Do all the right things. Buy a flat. Buy art. Buy a sort of happiness. But above all, keep your head down. Keep quiet. And keep going.
The narrator of Assembly is a Black British woman. She is preparing to attend a lavish garden party at her boyfriend's family estate, set deep in the English countryside. At the same time, she is considering the carefully assembled pieces of herself. As the minutes tick down and the future beckons, she can't escape the question: is it time to take it all apart?
Assembly is a story about the stories we live within - those of race and class, safety and freedom, winners and losers. And it is about one woman daring to take control of her own story, even at the cost of her life.
'One of the most talked-about debuts of the year . . . You'll read it in one sitting' Sunday Times Style
'Expertly crafted, remarkable, astonishing... A literary debut with flavours of Jordan Peele's Get Out' Bookseller, Editor's Choice
'Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway meets Citizen by Claudia Rankine...As breathtakingly graceful as it is mercilessly true' Olivia Sudjic
'Bold and original, with a cool intelligence, and so very truthful about the colonialist structure of British society' Diana Evans
'This marvel of a novel manages to say all there is to say about Britain today' Sabrina Mahfouz
Genre: Literary Fiction
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKS ARE MY BAG FICTION AWARD 2021
'Diamond-sharp, timely and urgent' Observer, Best Debuts of 2021
'Subtle, elegant, scorching... The literary debut of the summer' Vogue
'Virtuosic, exquisite, achingly unique' Guardian
'I'm full of the hope, on reading it, that this is the kind of book that doesn't just mark the moment things change, but also makes that change possible' Ali Smith
'Exquisite, daring, utterly captivating. A stunning new writer' Bernardine Evaristo
Come of age in the credit crunch. Be civil in a hostile environment. Step out into a world of Go Home vans. Go to Oxbridge, get an education, start a career. Do all the right things. Buy a flat. Buy art. Buy a sort of happiness. But above all, keep your head down. Keep quiet. And keep going.
The narrator of Assembly is a Black British woman. She is preparing to attend a lavish garden party at her boyfriend's family estate, set deep in the English countryside. At the same time, she is considering the carefully assembled pieces of herself. As the minutes tick down and the future beckons, she can't escape the question: is it time to take it all apart?
Assembly is a story about the stories we live within - those of race and class, safety and freedom, winners and losers. And it is about one woman daring to take control of her own story, even at the cost of her life.
'One of the most talked-about debuts of the year . . . You'll read it in one sitting' Sunday Times Style
'Expertly crafted, remarkable, astonishing... A literary debut with flavours of Jordan Peele's Get Out' Bookseller, Editor's Choice
'Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway meets Citizen by Claudia Rankine...As breathtakingly graceful as it is mercilessly true' Olivia Sudjic
'Bold and original, with a cool intelligence, and so very truthful about the colonialist structure of British society' Diana Evans
'This marvel of a novel manages to say all there is to say about Britain today' Sabrina Mahfouz
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Assembly feels thrillingly like the fictional companion to Jamaica Kincaid’s nonfiction masterpiece A Small Place: where A Small Place dissected British imperialism and coloniality as manifested in Antigua, Brown turns that keen, forensic gaze back to England’s own green and not so pleasant Land, filleting through its mores and pulling back its veneer of civility with the steady, sure hand of a surgeon. A book like a finely honed scalpel—marking a new and electrifying dawn for the essay novel." - Elaine Castillo
"Assembly is brilliant. Brown’s gaze is piercing. Each sentence is a perfectly polished jewel." - Avni Doshi
"Bold and original, with a cool intelligence, and so very truthful about the colonialist structure of British society: how it has poisoned even our language, making its necessary dismantling almost the stuff of dreams. I take hope from Assembly, not just for our literature but also for our slow awakening." - Diana Evans
"Natasha Brown’s exquisite prose, daring structure and understated elegance are utterly captivating. She is a stunning new writer." - Bernardine Evaristo
"Assembly is an astonishing work. Formally innovative, as beautiful as it is coolly devastating, urgent and utterly precise on what it means to be alive now." - Sophie Mackintosh
"Assembly captures the sickening weightlessness a Black British woman, who has been obedient to and complicit with the capitalist system, experiences as she makes life decisions under pressure from the hegemony. Stripped back to prose poetry and at times plainly essayistic, this is a bold and elegant statement, all the more powerful for its brevity." - Paul Mendez
"Assembly is brilliant. Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway meets Citizen by Claudia Rankine. Natasha Brown’s ability to slide between the tiniest, most telling detail and the edifice of history, the assemblage of so many lives in so many times and places, is as breathtakingly graceful as it is mercilessly true." - Olivia Sudjic
"Assembly is brilliant. Brown’s gaze is piercing. Each sentence is a perfectly polished jewel." - Avni Doshi
"Bold and original, with a cool intelligence, and so very truthful about the colonialist structure of British society: how it has poisoned even our language, making its necessary dismantling almost the stuff of dreams. I take hope from Assembly, not just for our literature but also for our slow awakening." - Diana Evans
"Natasha Brown’s exquisite prose, daring structure and understated elegance are utterly captivating. She is a stunning new writer." - Bernardine Evaristo
"Assembly is an astonishing work. Formally innovative, as beautiful as it is coolly devastating, urgent and utterly precise on what it means to be alive now." - Sophie Mackintosh
"Assembly captures the sickening weightlessness a Black British woman, who has been obedient to and complicit with the capitalist system, experiences as she makes life decisions under pressure from the hegemony. Stripped back to prose poetry and at times plainly essayistic, this is a bold and elegant statement, all the more powerful for its brevity." - Paul Mendez
"Assembly is brilliant. Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway meets Citizen by Claudia Rankine. Natasha Brown’s ability to slide between the tiniest, most telling detail and the edifice of history, the assemblage of so many lives in so many times and places, is as breathtakingly graceful as it is mercilessly true." - Olivia Sudjic
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