Description

A Barack Obama reading pick

A 2024 literary highlight for the Sunday Times, The Times, Observer, Financial Times, Guardian, Independent, BBC, Grazia, Evening Standard, ELLE, Dazed, Sunday Express, GQ, i-D, Stylist, Bookseller and Literary Friction
‘A thrilling debut . . . It’s very smart; it’s very silly; and the obvious fun never obscures completely the sheer, gorgeous, wild stretch of her ideas’
GUARDIAN

‘Fast moving and riotously entertaining, a genre-busting blend of wit and wonder’
OBSERVER, 10 best new novelists for 2024

‘Terrific, moving . . . Crack this book open and you’ll see how time can disappear’
FINANCIAL TIMES

‘I loved its combination of extreme whimsy, high seriousness and cool understatement’
THE TIMES

‘A high-energy story with thoughtful things to say about belonging’
INDEPENDENT

‘Utterly winning . . . Readers, I envy you: There’s a smart, witty novel in your future’
WASHINGTON POST

‘Clever, witty and thought-provoking’
KATE MOSSE, author of The Ghost Ship

‘Make room on your bookshelves for a new classic’
MAX PORTER, author of Shy

‘As electric, charming, whimsical and strange as its ripped-from-history cast’
EMILY HENRY, author of Happy Place

‘Thought-provoking and horribly clever – but it also made me laugh out loud’
ALICE WINN, author of In Memoriam

‘A feast of a novel – singular, alarming and (above all) incredibly sexy’
JULIA ARMFIELD, author of Our Wives Under the Sea

‘A weird, kind, clever, heartsick little time bomb of a book’
FRANCIS SPUFFORD, author of Golden Hill

A BOY MEETS A GIRL. THE PAST MEETS THE FUTURE. A FINGER MEETS A TRIGGER. THE BEGINNING MEETS THE END. ENGLAND IS FOREVER. ENGLAND MUST FALL.

In the near future, a disaffected civil servant is offered a lucrative job in a mysterious new government ministry gathering ‘expats’ from across history to test the limits of time-travel.

Her role is to work as a ‘bridge’: living with, assisting and monitoring the expat known as ‘1847’ – Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to find himself alive and surrounded by outlandish concepts such as ‘washing machine’, ‘Spotify’ and ‘the collapse of the British Empire’. With an appetite for discovery and a seven-a-day cigarette habit, he soon adjusts; and during a long, sultry summer he and his bridge move from awkwardness to genuine friendship, to something more.

But as the true shape of the project that brought them together begins to emerge, Gore and the bridge are forced to confront their past choices and imagined futures. Can love triumph over the structures and histories that have shaped them? And how do you defy history when history is living in your house?

Publisher Review

With a thoroughly offbeat love story at its heart and subtly interwoven musings on the UK’s imperial legacy, it’s fast moving and riotously entertaining, a genre-busting blend of wit and wonder — 10 best new novelists for 2024 * Observer * A delightfully audacious screwball comedy — Katie Goh, Fiction to be excited for in 2024 * i-D * An assured and fun debut . . . one of our books of the year — Unmissable books for 2024 * Stylist * A thrilling time-travelling romance about a real-life Victorian polar explorer who is brought from the past into 21st-century London as part of a government experiment — 40 best books of 2024 * Sunday Times * Wildly original . . . How horny can a speculative fiction novel be? Bradley’s debut is at once an outrageously fun comedy while also providing keen analyses on the nature of colonialism, power & bureaucracy — 10 exciting books to look out for in 2024 * Dazed * Social media is already aflutter about this one, a time-travelling love story — Novels to look out for in 2024 * Grazia * Within the first couple of pages I was gripped. The novel is clever, witty and thought-provoking, asking the question of what any of us might do if we could engage live with people from the past. Kaliane Bradley is a wonderful writer and I can’t wait to read what she does next — Kate Mosse, bestselling author of THE GHOST SHIP Holy smokes this novel is an absolute cut above! Kaliane Bradley leaps into a storytelling league of her own. This book is a deadly serious speculative fiction but it is also one of the funniest books I’ve read in years. It is exciting, surprising, intellectually provocative, weird, radical, tender and moving. I missed it when I was away from it. I will hurry to re-read it. Make room on your bookshelves for a new classic. — Max Porter, bestselling author of SHY An outrageously brilliant debut with a premise that just gets more and more original. The Ministry of Time pulls off the neatest trick of speculative fiction, first estranging us from our own era, and then facilitating our immigration back into the present; but it is also a love story, exploratory, sensitive, charged with possibility, and powered by desire, reminding us that history is synonymous with human beings, and that we all have the ability to change it. This is already the best new book I will have read next year — Eleanor Catton, author of BIRNAM WOOD As electric, charming, whimsical and strange as its ripped-from-history cast. (Extremely.) I loved every second I spent wrapped up in Kaliane Bradley’s stunning prose, the moments that made me laugh and those that made my heart ache. This is a book that surprises as much as it delights, and I’m already impatiently waiting for whatever Bradley concocts next — Emily Henry, author of HAPPY PLACE There aren’t many books that are as funny as they are clever as they are compelling. The Ministry of Time is hugely enjoyable: ingeniously constructed, beautifully written, and unexpectedly sexy. It is the rarest of creations: a boldly entertaining page-tuner that is also deeply, thoughtfully engaged with our past, present and future. A weird and tender time-travel love story. A brilliantly original debut. Your next crush is a long-dead Arctic explorer — Joanna Quinn, author of THE WHALEBONE THEATRE With its ingenious concept and gripping plot, The Ministry of Time is the most fun you could possibly ever have while engaging so seriously with history and our place in it. Bradley has a gift for locating our common humanity in people’s irreducible eccentricity. This is a book to read and re-read: you’ll want to fall in love with these characters over and over again — Diana Reid, author of LOVE & VIRTUE Funny, moving, original, intelligent, beautifully written and with a thunderous plot — Nathan Filer, author of THE SHOCK OF THE FALL I gobbled this up in twenty-four hours: I simply could not stop reading it. Kaliane Bradley writes with the maximalist confidence of P. G. Wodehouse, but also with the page-turning pining of Sally Rooney. It’s thought-provoking and horribly clever – but it also made me laugh out loud. And it’s got a cracking plot! I loved The Ministry of Time and I can’t wait for everyone to read it so I can talk about it more — Alice Winn, author of IN MEMORIAM A fantastic debut: conceptually brilliant, really funny, genuinely moving, written in the most exquisite language and with a wonderful articulation of the knotty complexities of a mixed-race heritage — Mark Haddon, author of THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME Sly and illusionless in its use of history, lovely in its sentences, warm – no, hotter than that – in its characterisation, devastating in its denouement. A weird, kind, clever, heartsick little time bomb of a book — Francis Spufford, author of GOLDEN HILL The Ministry of Time is a feast of a novel – singular, alarming and (above all) incredibly sexy. An astonishingly assured debut, offering weird and unexpected delights on every page. I will be running towards whatever Kaliane Bradley writes next — Julia Armfield, author of OUR WIVES UNDER THE SEA What a stunning and remarkable wonder! What if time travel were run by a bureaucracy? It would give us The Ministry of Time – a book that takes the history of colonialism, the British Empire, Cambodian genocide, and other terrible moments of history, and reminds us we are still living with the remnants of these troubled pasts. But also, it’s filled to the brim with laugh-out-loud humour, and possibly the best description of a dingy pub I’ve ever read in my life. There’s something for everyone – world history, side-splitting humour, lusty tension, brilliant prose, and characters to root for desperately. Bradley describes someone in the novel as being “sweaty and vibeless”, but I want to counter with this: The Ministry of Time is the most vibe-forward book I have ever read — Vanessa Chan, author of THE STORM WE MADE