An insect wakes one morning to find herself transformed into a monstrous human. An innocent man is erroneously declared deceased and can’t reinstate his existence; another ends up stuck in a facility that is determined to cure him of an illness he doesn’t even have. Minor bureaucracies become labyrinths of possible meanings, routine observation exercises drift into existential analyses, and purgatorial paralysis belongs to daily routines as much as it belongs to the next life.

Both offbeat and deadpan, surreal and winsome, The Insect Colony confirms J.L. Bogenschneider as one of Britain’s most inventive writers of contemporary fiction. In stories that border on the uncanny terrain of Borges and Kafka, or Ben Pester and Ben Marcus, identities dissolve and double, planes of existence multiply, and metaphysical voids open up in the midst of mundane lives. Linguistic play and formal dexterity are the only constants here, showcasing a singular voice that dazzles afresh with every new departure from what we expect fiction to be.