Love and Other Thought Experiments

Sophie Ward weaves a beguiling web of fable and fiction, fate and folly, fact and philosophy, over ten interconnecting but self-contained chapters.

Rachel and Eliza are hoping to have a baby. The couple spends many happy evenings together planning for the future. One night Rachel wakes up screaming and tells Eliza that an ant has crawled into her eye and is stuck there. She knows it sounds mad - but she also knows it’s true. Suddenly their entire relationship is called into question. Inspired by some of the best-known thought experiments in philosophy, Love and Other Thought Experiments is a story of love lost and found across the universe.

"Ward’s ingenious fiction debut stands in a tradition of philosophical fiction: Voltaire’s Candide, Sartre’s Nausea. It sets out to be intellectually provocative; to tease, vitalise and liberate our thought processes ... the success of Ward’s venture inevitably depends on the quality of the writing. This is often moving, exuberant and sensitive. We care about her characters and share their hopes and fears. Ward’s investigation and practice of empathy is easily the best thing in the book ..."  -  Steven Davies, The Guardian (UK)

Sophie Ward is an actor and writer. She has a PhD on the use of narrative in philosophy of mind. Her book, A Marriage Proposal; the importance of equal marriage and what it means for all of us was published by the Guardian short books in 2014. In 2018, Sophie won the Royal Academy Pin Drop award for her short story Sunbed.