Small

"Babies who are this small, he says, have a good chance of survival. Small is not good for babies. It is not whimsical or cute or the cause of admiration. It is the first time it occurs to us that they might not survive. Babies die from smallness."

Claire Lynch knew that having children with her wife would be complicated but she could never have anticipated the extent to which her life would be redrawn by the process.

This dazzling debut begins with the smallest of life's substances, the microscopic cells subdividing in a petri dish in a fertility treatment centre. She moves through her story in incremental yet ever growing steps, from the fingernail-sized pregnancy test result screen which bears two affirmative lines to the premature arrival of her children who have to wear scale-model oxygen masks in their life-saving incubators. Devastatingly poignant and profoundly observant - and funny against the odds - Claire considers whether it is our smallness that makes our lives so big.

About the Author

Claire works as a university lecturer and is author of two academic books and numerous scholarly articles and chapters. Small is her first book for a general audience.

Claire's Four Thought talk 'The Other Mother' was first broadcast on BBC Radio Four this year and her first piece of narrative non-fiction took second place in the Spread the Word Life Writing Prize in 2017.

She was a shortlisted writer on the Penguin Random House WriteNow scheme in 2018, and long-listed for the Hinterland non-fiction Prize in 2019.
In 2020, her writing was shortlisted for the London Library Emerging Writer's Programme and the Arvon Short Story competition.