The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth

The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth

Winner of the Gordon Burn Prize 2014 and The Bookseller Industry Book of the Year Award 2015. Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Folio Prize and shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize. A post-apocalyptic novel set a thousand years ago, The Wake tells the story of Buccmaster of Holland, a free farmer of Lincolnshire, owner of three oxgangs, a man clinging to the Old Gods as the world changes drastically around him. After losing his sons at the Battle of Hastings and his wife and home to the invading Normans, Buccmaster begins to gather together a band of 'grene men', who take up arms to resist their brutal invaders. Written in a 'shadow tongue' – a version of Old English updated so as to be understandable for the modern reader – The Wake is a landmark in historical fiction and looks set to become a modern classic.

'A literary triumph' Adam Thorpe 'Extraordinary' Philip Pullman 'A resonant, eloquent ballad of English identity, pride and fierce independenceIt is a thrilling story. Read it out loud. It is like nothing else.' Mark Rylance 'Reading Kingsnorth's book is to be immersed in the past and in a story in a way that I haven't really felt since childhood. It's time travel between hard covers, and the most glorious experience I've had with a book in years' Lucy Mangan, the Guardian 'It takes time and concentration, but it is effort repaid because, like William Golding's The Inheritors (1955), it forces you into another, more ancient way of seeing things.' The Sunday Times 'Haunting - more truly relevant to where we are now than many of the other books on the Man Booker longlist.' Daily Mail 'Strange and extraordinary - this unusual novel has power. It lingers in the imagination.' The Times 'The message of this extraordinary novel is as honest and timely as it is discomforting: being waecend to the grim fate of your society doesn't mean you can do anything to prevent it happening.' Times Literary Supplement 'In its refusal to yield easy answers, Kingsnorth's extraordinary, unsettling tale of the 11th Century makes not only a surprisingly satisfying novel, but a deeply modern one, too.' Melissa Harrison, Caught By The River 'An astonishing feat of imagination' Heathcote Williams 'An extraordinary, original and spellbinding book' Jay Griffiths

Paul Kingsnorth is the author of two non-fiction books, One No, Many Yeses (2003) and the highly acclaimed Real England (2008), as well as a collection of poetry, Kidland (2011). A former journalist and deputy editor of The Ecologist magazine, he has won several awards for his poetry and essays. In 2009, he co-founded the Dark Mountain Project, an international network of writers, artists and thinkers in search of new stories for troubled times. Much of his writing can be found online at www.paulkingsnorth.net. The Wake is his first novel.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781908717863
ISBN 10	1908717866
Title	The Wake
Author	Paul Kingsnorth
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Unbound
Year published	2014-04-03
Number of pages	384
Prizes	Winner of Bookseller Industry Awards Book of the Year 2015, Winner of Gordon Burn Prize 2014, Short-listed for Goldsmiths Prize 2014, Long-listed for Folio Prize 2015, Long-listed for Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2014
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable