THE INSTITUTE FOR CREATIVE DYING, a novel

333pp., paperback, First SA Edition, Johannesburg, 2023

Published internationally in 2023.

Five strangers – a model, a former nun, a couple in crisis, and an offender newly released from prison –  submit to an experience that will end their lives as they have known them.

"Rendered in vivid and highly imaginative detail, this story – seemingly about death – offers new understandings about what it truly means to be alive. Thompson is one of the most promising voices on the African continent." Rémy Ngamije, author of The Eternal Audience of One

"Jarred Thompson proves why he’s one of South Africa’s most daring young writers. Macabre, weird, zany and decidedly ominous, this gutsy debut novel explores the ethics of death and the value of life." Khanya Mtshali, writer and cultural critic

Jarred Thompson won the 2020 Afritondo Prize and has been the recipient of The Global Excellence and Stature Scholarship, The Chris van Wyk Creative Writing Scholarship, two National Arts Council Grants and an NRF nGAP Scholarship. He teaches in the English Department at the University of Pretoria. The Institute for Creative Dying is his debut novel.