When a government curfew silences a city, one woman risks everything to make it dance again. An electrifying dystopian novel about state control, collective resistance and the radical power of dance in a city on the brink

‘Passionate and compulsive’ Esther Freud, author of Hideous Kinky

In a near-future London gripped by heat, unrest and state control, Lois refuses to let the body be regulated. When the right to assemble is revoked and the city turns brittle with violence, she plans an illegal three-day ‘long dance’ inside a crumbling East End church. What begins as an act of liberation will ripple through the lives of five strangers, with consequences none of them can foresee.

Ecstatic is a fierce, lyrical novel about freedom and control, intimacy and collective release. It captures a city on edge and the underground communities that refuse to surrender joy. At once political and deeply human, it asks what happens when we lose touch with our bodies, and what it might cost to reclaim them. 

We are thrilled to welcome Emily Woof to bookhaus to discuss this. Tickets cost £7 and include a glass of wine or a soft drink and £2 off the book. Presented by bookhaus.

‘This beautiful and compelling novel is a paean to the power of dance … an exhilarating journey into a world where ecstatic dance just might hold the key to the future of humanity. You won't want to put it down – except to get up and dance’ Henry Shukman, author of One Blade of Grass and Original Love

‘Powerful, raw and fearless. I love how it invokes the wild feminine energies of chaos and design, destruction and renewal, death and rebirth. A remarkable achievement’ Ayala Gill

‘Remarkable … Woof’s prose is limpid and soaring. I don’t know of any other texts on this particular form of dance/spiritual practice that are able to capture so vividly the experience’ Manu Bazzano

 ‘Timely, vivid and important’ Eleanor Mills