Little Boxes

A story of sacrifice, violence and growing up different – told against the heat and claustrophobia of a seaside city in summer.

After Matthew’s grandfather dies suddenly, four friends struggle to face the trauma of their pasts in the wake of this fresh tragedy. Leah and Jay, a couple since their school days, find their relationship tested, while Nathan deals with a vast and unrequited love, and Matthew grapples with his sexuality. In the days that follow, Matthew begins to unearth his grandfather’s past. He finds a different life, full of secrets, and discovers that he and his grandfather may have had more in common than he once thought.

Little Boxes is a coming-of-age story about friendship and love, loss and survival.

Longlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award 2023

About the Author

Cecilia Knapp is a poet and playwright. She has read work all over the UK and internationally including residencies in Paris and Johannesburg.
include the TATE, Guardian, Huffington Post, Dazed, The Stage and the BBC. She featured in Vogue as one of the UK's young writers to watch. She was shortlisted for the 2020 Outspoken poetry prize, and made Young People's Laureate for London in 2020. Her poems have been widely anthologised. Her first theatre show, Finding Home, an exploration of the loss of her older brother to suicide, toured UK theatres extensively.

Her latest play, Losing the Night, recently premiered at the Roundhouse, enjoying a sold-out run before a UK tour. She was poet in residence at Great Ormond Street Hospital for two years and currently tutors the Roundhouse poetry collective. She is an ambassador for mental health charity CALM. Little Boxes is her first novel.