Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction 2021
Rami Elhanan and Bassam Aramin live near one another - yet they exist worlds apart.
Rami is Israeli. Bassam is Palestinian. Rami's license plate is yellow. Bassam's license plate is green. It takes Rami fifteen minutes to drive to the West Bank. The same journey for Bassam takes an hour and a half. Both men have lost their daughters.
Rami's thirteen-year-old girl Smadar was killed by a suicide bomber while out shopping with her friends. Bassam's ten-year-old daughter Abir was shot and killed by a member of the border police outside her school. There was a candy bracelet in her pocket she hadn't had time to eat yet. The men become the best of friends.
In this epic novel - named for a shape with a countably infinite number of sides - Colum McCann crosses centuries and continents,stitching time,art,history,nature and politics into a tapestry of friendship,love,loss and belonging. Musical,muscular,delicate and soaring,it is a book for our times from a writer at the height of his powers.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLCISBN: 9781526607898Number of pages: 480Weight: 390 gDimensions: 198 x 129 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'It is a daring,humane achievement.'- The Financial Times
'Apeirogon is the kind of book that comes along only once in a generation..it's a masterpiece,a novel that will change the world,and you don't hear that very often.'- The Observer
'Nothing like any book you've ever read...Think of discovering an entirely unprecedented,and profoundly true,narrative form. Think about feeling that the very idea of the novel,of what it can be and what it's capable of containing,has been expanded,forever...All I can really tell you is,read McCann's book. It's an important book'- Michael Cunningham
'Teeming with gorgeous prose; a sweeping look at the paradoxical relationship between history and private life; a penetrating examination of the deficiencies and marvels of the human spirit...Propulsive,muscular,swerving through details of life - real and imagined - with urgency,borne along on prose that is some of McCann's finest,fully displaying his powers as a storyteller of just about supernatural ability. This book will break your heart and make you rethink how storytelling works'- Tea Obreht
'A quite extraordinary novel. Colum McCann has found the form and voice to tell the most complex of stories,with an unexpected friendship between two men at its powerfully beating heart'- Kamila Shamsie
'Distinguished by empathy and intelligence,this book marks a new threshold of writing...Apeirogon will have a strong effect on all those who read it and,remarkably,could lead to great consequences for the future of this place. Sometimes books can do this'- Raja Shehadah
'A work of incredible magnitude. McCann finds the emotional accuracy,the sensitivity,and the beauty to tell the heartbreaking reality of life in Israel-Palestine,while allowing readers a glimmer of necessary hope. It is greater than a novel in more than one sense,and will both touch and enrich readers,wherever they live and whatever they know about the region'- Assaf Gavron
'Colum McCann loves a high-wire act,and Apeirogon is a powerful,political tightrope walk of a novel. It's the story of modern Israel and the story of modern Palestine. This beautiful,deeply felt book is first and foremost an extraordinary act of listening'-Nathan Englander
Colum McCann
Colum McCann is an award-winning Irish writer of literary fiction,best known for his novels TransAtlantic and the National Book Award-winning Let the Great World Spin.
Visit the Colum McCann author page
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