Barabus, a novella. Tenement Press

978-1-917304-08-5 / 121pp / £16.50. https://tenementpress.com/BARABUS

From the publisher “A medic roams an English city, going from call to call. As our protagonist roves from station to station they encounter accident, amusement, injury and error—minor ailment and major catastrophe alike—as they mis-/adventure in the functionary detachment of applied temporary medicine. In a thread of instances laced with blood and banality, gore and gratuity—horrors both benign and ballooning—the medic is Fowler’s working witness to the body’s frailties. In their encounters, they see the structures and strictures and hierarchies of lived experience. How life can be boiled down to the ‘job,’ how a crisis can be crystallised in a single conversation, how calamity can overwhelm the senses, how hope hides in small rooms.

        If a body is our ‘soft machine,’ as William S. Burroughs would put it, BARABUS is a book keen to picture the hard-edged horizon line of morbidity. A midnight-dark comedy with the bite and temerity of Chris Morris—the acerbity of Peter Weiss—and the ambiguity of Le Clezio, Fowler’s second novella is a work of disarming directness. A paean to the costs of life lived in service of the needs of others—in riverine prose cooked down to concrete—this is a book about long, hard and strange work. The weird of exhaustion, the colour of tarmac, and the breadline of spirit. About the people that attend to the possibility of our continuity.”

Harrowing at times, but immensely rewarding, Fowler’s novella is a moving exploration of the effort required to remain unmoved. 
—  Dan Abnett

Everything that folds from Fowler’s soft bag of brain is a phenomenal and precious gift, and one anyone truly interested in language, human coping and the murk-sparks of the mind should know. Now drive and siren back to the station and go on.  
—  Han Smith

Relentless, compelling, comic and sobering. —  Vanessa Onwuemezi

Frenetic and exhilarating outbursts, as eye-witness accounts from a mind’s eye of true originality.  — Andrew Kotting

Barabus at Waste Exchange : June 7th

Thanks to the brilliant curation of Andrea Mason I had the chance to launch Barabus at Avalon Cafe in London during this all day event. Apart from the reading, everything I did was 100% improvised on the spot and it somewhat went my way. Thanks to the unknown pianist.

Launch at Brick Lane Books : June 5th, in conversation with Luke Kennard

A wonderful launch, for me, to share my book with a few dozen friends and kind ears in the brilliant Brick Lane Bookshop. Luke Kennard was really kind to come and talk to me for nearly an hour about Barabus and it’s themes, and big thanks to him and Dominic Jaeckle for being ever present behind the book.

Resonance FM, Live Literature - Interview about Barabus May 23, 2026

Tony White was one of the first authors I met when I started wanting to be a poet and writer, I attended a workshop he did in London in 2009. He’s someone I’ve long admired, and so it was extra special to feature on his return to Resonance radio, in the first episode of a new run of his Literature Live show, alongside the brilliant Andrea Mason. I had the chance to read from my new novella Barabus and talk about the show and more. Full episode here https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/literature-live-4th-may-2026/ and a cut for my youtube