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Having Spent Life Seeking
  • Published: 28 April 2026
  • ISBN: 9781787335387
  • Imprint: Jonathan Cape
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $38.00

Having Spent Life Seeking

Formats & editions
Tr. Paperback
28 Apr 2026
Hardback
30 May 2026
EBook
30 Apr 2026
Audiobook
30 Apr 2026
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The heart-breaking, soul-building new novel about the transformative power of love, from the Sunday Times-bestselling Kae Tempest

Rothko Taylor is back in their hometown after fifteen years away. Can life turn out differently this time?

'A master-craftsman of deep feeling and linguistic intimacy' MAX PORTER

'If books can still change the world, this one most likely will' COLUM MCCANN

Rothko Taylor has washed up with the tide, back in their hometown, Edgecliff. Fifteen years since they left it behind.

The past is accelerating towards them: the skateboard kids on the high street that remind them of their teenage years, the splintered benches looking out to sea, where their mum Meg clutched her cans. The nice bit of town, where their dad Ezra tried and failed to build a happy home. And Dionne's block. Beautiful, extraordinary Dionne, the only person who had ever looked at them and seen what was there.

Back then, overwhelmed and full of fear, they sank beneath the surface into chaos. But they made it out alive. And this time, Rothko is determined that things will be different.

A decade since Kae Tempest's last novel, Having Spent Life Seeking is about family and forgiveness; redemption and atonement; desire and abandon; selfhood and community. The things we seek when we are hiding, and what finds us, if we can let ourselves be seen.

'A wonderful, moving and enlightening state-of-Britain novel' IRVINE WELSH

'A scorching story of love, change, homecoming and forgiveness' DAWN FRENCH

'Kae Tempest at his finest' ANTHONY SHAPLAND

'Unboundedly beautiful' MICHAEL PEDERSEN
  • Published: 28 April 2026
  • ISBN: 9781787335387
  • Imprint: Jonathan Cape
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $38.00
Categories:

About the author

Kae Tempest

KAE TEMPEST has been putting words together since he was a teenager. He has published plays, poetry collections, non-fiction, a Sunday Times-bestselling novel and has released six studio albums. In 2013 Tempest won the Ted Hughes Award, making him the youngest ever poet to receive it. He was named a Next Generation Poet in 2014, a once-in-a-decade honour, and in the same year he received the first of two Mercury Prize nominations. He is the only person to have achieved both accolades. In 2021 he was awarded the Silver Lion in Venice for his work as a playwright and in 2023 he won an Ivor Novello for his songwriting. His books have been translated into multiple languages and published to critical acclaim around the world. He hopes he will continue putting words together for the rest of his life.
KT

Praise for Having Spent Life Seeking

A wonderful, moving and enlightening state-of-Britain novel stuffed with memorable characters, depicting an individual’s struggle for self-realization in a society punitive to those who refuse to stand in its prescribed boxes

Irvine Welsh

Unboundedly beautiful. Having Spent Life Seeking rings the heart like a bell

Michael Pedersen

Having Spent Life Seeking is Kae at his finest, his uncanny skill of focussing on detail, noticing and observing ordinariness – all while allowing slippery truths to surface in this gentle, volatile book

Anthony Shapland

A hallelujah of a book. A scorching story of love, change, homecoming and forgiveness. Kae at his beautiful, brilliant, best

Dawn French

Kae Tempest brings into the literary realm that which others choose to leave outside. This is a remarkable act of literary bravery. If books can still change the world, this one most likely will. Narrative-driven, stuffed with soul, brimming with brokenness, rife with repair, this is a book for our splintered times. In Tempest's hands, redemption travels faster than the speed of light

Colum McCann

A master-craftsman of deep feeling and linguistic intimacy

Max Porter

Agile shifts in perspective allow Tempest to extend his 360-compassion as he brings marginalised lives into sharp focus; he writes brilliantly about addiction and desire, too. Tough and lyrical, it’s a tale of survival and becoming that earns the grace of its moving conclusion

Daily Mail

Amazing, it really moved me... Not something I've encountered in British literary fiction before

Shon Faye

Having Spent Life Seeking will surely take its place in the trans canon

Guardian