Jim Crace

A stable fire in a remote English village leads to disputes between newcomers who are wrongly accused and long-term residents who refuse to believe one of their own could be responsible, a situation that is further exacerbated by the observations and meticulous note-taking of another outsider. By the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of Being Dead. 25,000 first printing.

Harvest

Being dead

Aside from his trusty piano, Alfred Busi lives alone in his villa overlooking the waves. Famed in his town for his music and songs, he is mourning the recent death of his wife and quietly living out his days, occasionally performing the classics in small venues--never in the stadiums he could fill when in his prime. On the night before receiving his town's highest honor, Busi is wrested from bed by noises in his courtyard and then stunned by an attacking intruder--his hands and neck are scratched, his face is bitten. Busi can't say what it was that he encountered, exactly, but he feels his assailant was neither man nor animal. The attack sets off a chain of events that will cast a shadow on Busi's career, imperil his home, and alter the fabric of his town. Busi's own account of what happened is embellished to fan the flames of old rumor--of an ancient race of people living in the surrounding forest--and to spark new controversy: something must finally be done about the town's poor, the feral vagabonds at its edges, whose numbers have been growing. All the while Busi, weathering a media storm, must come to terms with his wife's death and decide whether to sing one last time.

The Melody

The Pesthouse

Self-made millionaire Victor wants to leave his mark before he dies. He has no family, no lover, so on his 80th birthday he decides to create a lasting monument in the city that made his fortune. He will destroy the old market-place where he grew up amongst the street traders and beggars, and rebuild it in the shape of Arcadia: a modern utopia of glass and greenery at the heart of the metropolis. 'The tallest buildings throw the longest shadows - thus great men make their mark,' Victor's architect tells him. Yet Arcadia's shadow falls more darkly than those around him could imagine . . . Another brilliant, inventive and engrossing novel from the masterful Jim Crace.

Arcadia

Retells the story of Jesus Christ's forty-day sojourn in the wilderness and its impact on a small group of individuals

A Novel

Quarantine

Eden

Collects sixty-four short stories about appetite, food, and desire.

A Feast

The Devil's Larder

The Gift of Stones

The Pesthouse (Vintage)

Đavolova ostava

November, 1836. A fierce gale beaches an American sail ship off the English coast, injuring an African slave below decks and eventually disgorging 300 head of cattle and rowdy American sailors into a hardscrabble fishing village. The same storm drives into port a steamer, bearing one Aymer Smith, the foolish well-intentioned prig who will deprive the town of its livelihood, free the African slave, and set into motion a whole series of unforeseeable, tragicomic events. One of the most seductive and surprising novelist at work today, once again creates a richly strange and believable world, uncannily familiar to our own.

Signals of Distress

‘Hard and actual in observation, clearly and richly imagined, remarkably original’ Guardian A novel in seven stories, Continent is an exploration of the cultures, communities and natural life of an entirely imaginary realm. Built on rich seams of myth and metaphor, this new, seventh continent is strange, atmospheric and yet not wholly a mirage, for its inhabitants are disarmingly familiar, known to us through their loves, their hopes and their struggles to make sense of life. On its first publication over twenty years ago, this spellbinding book marked the arrival of one of the most inventive minds at work in modern fiction. ‘Fuses folklore and political parable, moral fable and myth, into something rather original and also very modern’ The Times ‘Makes us see our own world more clearly . . . brilliant, provocative and delightful’ New York Times

Continent

Slow Digestions of the Night

Quarantine Reader's Guide

Roman

In Arkadien

Recolta

Alfred Busi, dit Mr Al, est attaqué chez lui par une créature étrange. Les médias crient à l’invasion de bêtes féroces pendant qu’Alfred affirme que son assaillant est un enfant rendu fou par la faim. Alfred, chanteur reconnu qui vient de perdre son épouse, devient alors malgré lui la seule voix dissonante dans la petite ville d’Angleterre frappée depuis quelques temps par de mystérieuses agressions. Lui appelle à la compassion et à l’action collective, alors que les habitants du coin se calfeutrent et développent un discours réactionnaire de plus en plus haineux. D’un sujet de société – la pauvreté, le sort des migrants – Jim Crace a fait un roman-fable mélancolique qui est aussi une réflexion sur la place de l’artiste dans le monde.

Jim Crace

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