‘A novel in 9 parts’ and ten sections in different voices and different locations giving a feeling of short stories, building in their links but never really coming together. It’s a stunning work, challenging, rewarding and very intelligent leaving you with lots to think about and ready to move on to his magnificent Cloud Atlas.
An apocalyptic cult member carries out a gas-attack on a rush-hour metro, but what connects him to a jazz-buff in Tokyo? A Mongolian gangster, a redundant English spy in Petersburg with a knack for forging masterpieces, a despondent "zookeeper", a nuclear scientist, a ghostwriter, a ghost, and a late night New York DJ whose hard-boiled scepticism has been his undoing all also have stories to tell. Add to this saxophones and causality, Buddha, cherry blossoms, island cities, a mind unhooked from memory, the Trans Siberian express, hidden narratives of the new world's order, circles and roulette in London, Baggins the Tarantula and a quantum computer born one century ahead of its time. All elements are interconnected and each character must play their part as they are caught up in the inescapable forces of cause and effect.
'Demands to be read and re-read...an astonishing debut.' - Lawrence Norfolk, Independent
'One of the best first novels I've read in a long time...I coudn't put it down' - A.S. Byatt, Mail on Sunday
'A firework display...a remarkable novel by a young writer of remarkable talent' Adam Lively, Observer
'A stunning mix of cyber-thriller and mysticism' - Boyd Tonkin, Independent
Author
About David Mitchell
Born in 1969, David Mitchell grew up in Worcestershire. After graduating from Kent University, he taught English in Japan, where he wrote his first novel, Ghostwritten. Published in 1999, it was awarded the Mail on Sunday John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. His second novel, number9dream, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and in 2003, David Mitchell was selected as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. His third novel, Cloud Atlas, was shortlisted for six awards including the Man Booker Prize, and adapted for film in 2012. It was followed by Black Swan Green, shortlisted for the Costa Novel of the Year Award, and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, which was a No. 1 Sunday Times bestseller. Both were also longlisted for the Booker. In 2013, The Reason I Jump: One Boy's Voice From the Silence of Autism by Naoki Higashida was published in a translation from the Japanese by David Mitchell and KA Yoshida. It was an immediate bestseller in the UK and later in the US as well.
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