The English disease - Lydia Towsey

'The English Disease' has been coined as a term to describe everything from missed penalties and vitamin D deficiency, to no sex please and rickets. Exploring recent world events, including the international migration crisis and the British EU Referendum, alongside the lived experience of becoming a mother in a year of celebrity death and continental fracture, this eponymously titled collection examines the condition afresh, post Bowie, Brexit, Truth and Trump.

Exploring notions of Englishness via its title poem and across six sequential chapters, The English Disease moves chronologically from the experience of pregnancy and having a baby in a year of general election, through to the immediately arising political events of 2016, 2017 and beyond...

With zombies, cats, undead break-ups, pineapples, buses, breastfeeding, rewritten nursery rhymes and Gothic, illustrated re-imaginings of Beatrix Potter. The English Disease draws upon British icons and family histories - as well as the personal experience of motherhood, Englishness, eating disorders and the undead to explore these, class, colonialism and other themes.