Lincoln in the Bardo: WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017 (Bloomsbury Publishing) - Hardcover

Saunders, George

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1408871742 ISBN 13: 9781408871744

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017

Synopsis

WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017

A STORY OF LOVE AFTER DEATH

'A masterpiece' Zadie Smith
'Extraordinary' Daily Mail
'Breathtaking' Observer
'A tour de force' The Sunday Times

The extraordinary first novel by the bestselling, Folio Prize-winning, National Book Award-shortlisted George Saunders, about Abraham Lincoln and the death of his eleven year old son, Willie, at the dawn of the Civil War

The American Civil War rages while President Lincoln's beloved eleven-year-old son lies gravely ill. In a matter of days, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns to the crypt several times alone to hold his boy's body.

From this seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of realism, entering a thrilling, supernatural domain both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself trapped in a transitional realm - called, in Tibetan tradition, the bardo - and as ghosts mingle, squabble, gripe and commiserate, and stony tendrils creep towards the boy, a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie's soul.

Unfolding over a single night, Lincoln in the Bardo is written with George Saunders' inimitable humour, pathos and grace. Here he invents an exhilarating new form, and is confirmed as one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. Deploying a theatrical, kaleidoscopic panoply of voices - living and dead, historical and fictional - Lincoln in the Bardo poses a timeless question: how do we live and love when we know that everything we hold dear must end?

About this title

Review:

George Saunders's brilliant debut novel about a grieving Lincoln confirms him as a literary star . To read Saunders's fiction is to be dazzled by ingenuity, imagination and searing comic verve ... A tender but trenchant reminder that America is and always has been many-voiced: not one story, but millions (Sunday Times)

Death haunts us, and in Lincoln in the Bardo George Saunders mines the many ways it does: the Gothic, the sentimental, the fearful and, above all, the grief-stricken (Joan Bakewell New Statesman, Books of the Year 2017)

I was impressed but challenged by the originality and scope of George Saunders's Booker-winning story of grief and empathy, Lincoln in the Bardo (Gordon Brown Guardian, Best Books of 2017)

A luminous feat of generosity and humanism. Such is Saunders's magnificent portraiture that readers will recognize in this wretchedness and bravery aspects of their own characters as well (Colson Whitehead New York Times)

The most strange and brilliant book you'll read this year . Riotously imagined ... So intimate and human, so profound, that it seems like an act of grace (Financial Times 2017-03-04)

A historical novel that hews deeply and movingly to archival fact while also being an all-out crazy spectacle of his own invention ... A puzzling, hilarious vortex of invention that only Saunders could pull off. The novel made me feel intimate with Lincoln, and that particular moment of history, in a way I never had before (Jennifer Egan Guardian, Best Books of 2017)

Ingenious ... As entrancing as it is beautiful (Chigozie Obioma Observer, Best Books of the Year 2017)

Dazzling and disorientating . As you turn the pages of this remarkable novel it starts to feel uncannily like a hinge in American history (The Times)

Lincoln in the Bardo was every bit as wonderful as I expected from the great George Saunders (Paul Murray Observer, Best Books of the Year 2017)

It would be an understatement to call this novel an extraordinary tour de force ... Steeped in morality, it's a master-feat of vitality (Sunday Times 2017-02-26)

Book Description:

WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1408871742
• ISBN 13: 9781408871744
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368