Taking his cue from Japanese author Kenzaburō Ōe’s Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age!, Alan Cunningham has produced a debut novella that is both beautiful and experimental – a powerful exploration of sexuality and the body.

Count from Zero to One Hundred is written as a series of prose fragments, fluctuating from conversation to philosophical reflection in an anxious staccato, as its narrator moves across some of the great cities of Europe – Berlin, London, Dublin, Budapest – and other parts of the world. Traces of Beckett and Joyce are felt in this moving and contemporary meditation on the limits and vulnerability of the body, and the power of language and imagination to transcend those limits.

Alan Cunningham is a writer from Northern Ireland. Currently based in London, he was born in Newry and has previously lived in Belfast, Dublin and Berlin. He has taught at the Node Centre for Curatorial Studies, Berlin, and at Queen Mary, University of London. Count from Zero to One Hundred is his first book.