Piranesi: WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE 2021

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WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE 2021 WINNER OF THE KITSCHIES' 2021 SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA NOVEL OF THE YEAR AWARD A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER CHOSEN AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE THE TIMES, GUARDIAN, OBSERVER, DAILY TELEGRAPH, FINANCIAL TIMES, i PAPER, NEW STATESMAN, SPECTATOR, TIME MAGAZINE, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, BBC CULTURE, NETGALLEY AND THE CHURCH TIMES The spectacular new novel from the bestselling author of JONATHAN STRANGE & MR NORRELL, one of our greatest living authors New York Magazine Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has. In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls. On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend, the Other. At other times he brings tributes of food to the Dead. But mostly, he is alone. Messages begin to appear, scratched out in chalk on the pavements. There is someone new in the House. But who are they and what do they want Are they a friend or do they bring destruction and madness as the Other claims Lost texts must be found; secrets must be uncovered. The world that Piranesi thought he knew is becoming strange and dangerous. The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite. ***** 'What a world Susanna Clarke conjures into being Piranesi is an exquisite puzzle-box' DAVID MITCHELL It subverts expectations throughout Utterly otherworldly Guardian 'Piranesi astonished me. It is a miraculous and luminous feat of storytelling' MADELINE MILLER Brilliantly singular Sunday Times 'A gorgeous, spellbinding mystery This book is a treasure, washed up upon a forgotten shore, waiting to be discovered' ERIN MORGENSTERN Head-spinning Fully imagined and richly evoked Telegraph

Reviews

Reminds us of fictions power to take us to another world and expand our understanding of this one * Guardian, Autumn highlights *
It has a daring and a grace that are quietly, transportingly spectacular. If you were looking for a book that distils the concept of wonder, this is the one: it feels like a work of pure generosity -- KATHERINE RUNDELL * GUARDIAN, Best summer books *
Its always great to have some fiction to heartily recommend, and while theres been stiff competition this year, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke has won out in the end. A masterful work of weird fiction, its a novel that grips, perplexes and moves you, usually all at once! * Observer, The Best Books of 2020 *
The fiction, nonfiction and poetry that deepened our understanding, ignited our curiosity and helped us escape For fantasy readers often eager to get lost in mystical worlds and escape the complications of real life, Piranesis predicament deeply resonates * Time, Books of the Year *
The long-anticipated second novel from the author of 2004s best-seller Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a philosophical fantasy. Piranesi (the name is one of several allusions to the 18th century) spends his days interpreting coded messages left around a labyrinthine villa filled with seabirds and symbolic statues * Financial Times, Books of the Year *
Susanna Clarkes new novel is a beguiling study of isolation and exile ... To say more would be to ruin one of the years more unusual reading experiences * i paper, Books of the Year 2020 *
This tale of weird enchanted halls is close to perfect * The Times, Books of the Year *
A warm book about losing and finding oneself; about what humanity could have lost in the process of becoming rational * BBC.com *
Purely joyful reading a delight - as if Borges wrote a novel with a beginning, middle and satisfying end -- Naomi Alderman * Spectator, Books of the Year *
My absolute favourite book of the year by miles ... it took root in me -- Jenny Colgan * Spectator, Books of the Year *
Like Hilary Mantel, Clarke made the very notion of genre seem quaint ... Piranesi is a tenebrous study in solitude A remarkable feat, not just of craft but of reinvention * Guardian *
Susanna Clarke's first novel since 2004's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was more than worth the sixteen-year wait. Full of the magic and mayhem you might expect, Piranesi introduces a labyrinth to savour * NetGalley UKs Top Ten Books of 2020 *
Susanna Clarke's long-awaited Piranesi is utterly compelling bewildering, intense, moving, shocking, combining a haunting fantasy with sharp insights about a culture of domination, hierarchy and rivalry and about how the imagination can survive in such a world -- Rowan Williams * New Statesman Books of the Year *
Like a thriller Compelling A fever dream - disorientating, engrossing, persistently strange It burrows into the subconscious, throwing out puzzles long after the final page Brilliantly singular * Sunday Times *
Exhilarating and hallucinatory, a mystery told backwards and inside-out. How she does it I've no idea; it's as though most minds are cameras, but Clarke's is a kaleidoscope -- Melissa Harrison * New Statesman, Books of the Year *
Brilliantly peculiar It subverts expectations throughout Utterly otherworldly * Guardian *
The publication of Susanna Clarke's Piranesi confirms her status as one of the greatest and most interesting writers of fantasy in the past hundred years or more * Times Literary Supplement, Books of the Year *
A gently comic, thoroughly beguiling read The House - its upper rooms lost in clouds, its lower chambers drowned by the sea - will haunt my dreams * Daily Mail *
The most curious confection Blending elements of mythology and fantasy, with nods along the way to CS Lewis and Tolkien Genuinely moving climax that throws open the doors of the halls in more ways than one * i paper *
Her prowess as a stylist is undiminished Piranesis naively observant voice also nods to the narrators of those Enlightenment parables of flawed Reason lost amid marvels and monsters think Defoes Crusoe, Swifts Gulliver, Voltaires Candide * The Arts Desk *
Close to perfect ... Full of wonders and an infectious ecstasy ... Clarke has the same skill Flann OBrien poured into The Third Policeman for making insane worlds feel as solid as our own * Sunday Times *
A dazzling fable about loneliness, imagination and memory * Spectator *
Beautiful and bewitchingly strange * Mail on Sunday *
This is a novel of exceptional beauty ... The clich that this book is hard to put down is for once true; I can think of few recent books that keep the reader so passionately hungry to know what happens next and to understand the hints and guesses that appear in greater and greater profusion ... There is at the heart of her writing a rare capacity for the immediate: the stripped, wide-eyed descriptive simplicity of someone who, like her Piranesi, has gone through some sort of barrier and brought back news. -- Rowan Williams * New Statesman *
A novel to revisit - a house you can open again, with statues touched by quiet thoughts and strange tides ... To read Piranesi is to be the labyrinth and the traveller in the labyrinth, which is poetry and prose * Observer *
Piranesi astonished me. It is a miraculous and luminous feat of storytelling, at once a gripping mystery, an adventure through a brilliant new fantasy world, and a deep meditation on the human condition: feeling lost, and being found. I already want to be back in its haunting and beautiful halls! -- MADELINE MILLER
A book thats deliciously weird but meticulously constructed to achieve maximum suspense. Susanna Clarke doesnt just write about magic; she channels it on to the page * Sunday Express *
Enthralling and transcendent ... Clarke's writing is clear, sharp - she can cleave your heart in a few short words ... The mystery of Piranesi unwinds at a tantalizing yet lightning-like pace - it's hard not to rush ahead, even when each sentence, each revelation makes you want to linger * NPR *
Plunges deep into those forbidden fortresses from which the un-mad and mortal among us are forever barred ... The only possible conclusion is: Clarke is writing from experience ... With great effort, Clarke has un-unpicked her personality and returned to this world, our Earth, so that the rest of us might know her exquisite burden. Welcome back, Fairy Mistress, if only for a spell! We are grateful to you, oh yes, but we mourn you a little, toothat you must work so hard to be human. * Wired *
Utterly brain-mangling A creepy, expertly managed crime story * Metro *
Close to perfect ... As a work of fiction, its spectacular; an irresistibly unspooling mystery set in a world of original strangeness, revealing a set of ideas that will stay lodged in your head long after youve finished reading * The Times *
Why dont you trip on the new Susanna Clarke book if you want to get your mind bent but dont much care for drugs * New York Magazine *
A high-quality page-turner - even the most leisurely reader will probably finish it off in a day - but its chief pleasure is immersion in its strange and uncannily attractive setting ... A standout feat * Wall Street Journal *
Could Piranesi match the hype Im delighted to say it has, with Clarkes singular wit and imagination still intact in a far more compressed yet still captivating tale youll want to delve into again right after you read its sublime last sentence * Boston Globe *
A short and beautiful novel that reads like a poem ... in its cumulative effect of expressing an emotion and state of being that is inexpressible. Its a strange and lovely read * Buzzfeed *
In terms of invention and beauty, its a fitting heir to Clarkes first book Clarke deftly weaves together highbrow and lowbrow so Piranesi as reader is both symbol and story. To read Piranesi is to be the labyrinth and the traveler in the labyrinth, which is poetry and prose The end of the novel doesnt exactly provide justice, and closure is only provisional. Piranesi is a gentle man, and a gentle book. It wants to leave doors open for its characters and its readers Piranesi is a novel to revisit - a house you can open again, with statues touched by quiet thoughts and strange tides * Observer *
What a world Susanna Clarke conjures into being, what a tick-tock-tick-tock of reveals, what a pure protagonist, what a morally squalid supporting cast, what beauty, tension and restraint, and what a pitch-perfect ending. Piranesi is an exquisite puzzle-box far, far bigger on the inside than it is on the outside -- DAVID MITCHELL
A wonder * Slate.com *
Susanna Clarke has fashioned her own myth anew and enlarged the world again * New Republic *
Piranesi is a gorgeous, spellbinding mystery that gently unravels page by page. Precisely the sort of book that I love wordlessly handing to someone so they can have the pleasure of uncovering its secrets for themselves. This book is a treasure, washed up upon a forgotten shore, waiting to be discovered -- ERIN MORGENSTERN
Okay, now everyone listen. No, I mean it, shut up for a second. We need to talk about Piranesi. I dont I really do not know how to talk about this book beyond a very high pitched scream and an emphatic grabbing of your knee * Tor.com *
As gloriously imaginative as its predecessor A novel that could have been written by nobody else Her prose is crisp, direct and unfussy Its a book about the tension between those who want to possess a world and those who delight in it, describe it, honour it. Its an extraordinary book, well worth the wait * SFX Magazine *
Fifteen years on from Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Clarkes second novel finally sees the li

Author Bio

Susanna Clarke's debut novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was first published in more than 34 countries and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Guardian First Book Award. It won British Book Awards Newcomer of the Year, the Hugo Award and the World Fantasy Award in 2005. The Ladies of Grace Adieu, a collection of short stories, some set in the world of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, was published by Bloomsbury in 2006. Piranesi was a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller, and shortlisted for the Costa Novel of the Year Award, the Hugo Award and the Women's Prize for Fiction. Susanna Clarke lives in Derbyshire.