Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark - Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2025

‘Absolutely mesmerising’ SPECTATOR
‘I raced through it’ ALI SMITH, GUARDIAN
‘Unputdownable’ FINANCIAL TIMES
‘A fire-starter’ NEW YORK TIMES
‘Hypnotic’ TLS
‘Joyously, brilliantly intelligent’ ANNE ENRIGHT

From one of our leading biographers and critics comes an exhilarating, landmark new look at Muriel Spark.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION

A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR: THE TIMES/SUNDAY TIMES, GUARDIAN, TELEGRAPH, TLS, FINANCIAL TIMES, ECONOMIST, NEW STATESMAN, LONDON STANDARD AND WASHINGTON POST

Muriel Spark was a puzzle, and so too were her books. She dealt in word games, tricks and ciphers; her life was composed of weird accidents, strange coincidences and spooky events. In Electric Spark, Frances Wilson aims to finally crack her code.

We return to Spark’s early years when everything was piled on: divorce, madness, murder, espionage, poverty, skulduggery, blackmail, love affairs, revenge and a major religious conversion. If this sounds like a novel by Muriel Spark it is because her experiences of the 1940s and 1950s became, alchemically reduced, the material of her art.