Book of Clouds

(Paperback)

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Description

A stunning debut novel inviting comparisons with Haruki Murakami and Paul Auster. Tatiana, a young Mexican woman, is adrift in Berlin. Choosing a life of solitude, she takes a job transcribing notes for the reclusive Doktor Weiss. Through him she meets 'ant illustrator turned meteorologist' Jonas, a Berliner who has used clouds and the sky's constant shape-shifting as his escape from reality. As their three paths intersect and merge, the contours of all their worlds begins to change...

Reviews

Chloe Aridjis has achieved something quite astonishing: a rethinking of one of our most complacent forms, the historical novel.... The writer she calls to mind is the Modernist Haruki Murakami, with his unsolved riddles and ultra-cool characters. It is a book that you press on friends -- Helen Rumbelow * The Times *
[An] exceptional debut novel.... a beautifully turned piece of writing of extraordinary assurance... As natural as breathing. Both vivid and dreamlike, at once very precise in its images and also enchantingly broad-brush atmospheric, this is a debut more captivating than any I've read in some time -- Daniel Hahn * Independent on Sunday *
The debut novel by the New York-born, now London-based, Aridjis comes highly recommended by literary heavyweights Paul Auster and Ali Smith, a choice emphasising both Aridjis's transatlantic appeal and her literary sensibilities -- Lesley Mcdowell * Scotsman *
A hypnotic first novel about a young Mexican gal in Berlin who stumbles into friendship with an eccentric historian and the madness that ensues. This book has the power of dreams and still hasn't left me -- Junot Diaz
A stirring and lyrical first novel by a young writer of immense talent -- Paul Auster

Author Bio

Chloe Aridjis was born in New York, and grew up in the Netherlands and Mexico City. She studied for a BA at Harvard, and gained her DPhil in nineteenth-century French poetry and magic from Oxford University. She then spent five years in Berlin and now lives in London.