Maria McCann is the author of As Meat Loves Salt, an Economist Book of the Year, and The Wilding, longlisted for the Orange Prize. She has also contributed to various anthologies, most recently to Why Willows Weep and Beacons.
'Down in the ooze the pips took root. It was bitterly cold, just the other side of the wall of Eden. The saplings that struggled up were twisted and half-starved, and their fruit soured by sadness.'