Description

‘A rich, strange book. Very truthful and moving’ Tessa Hadley

‘A terrific, engrossing novel’ Roddy Doyle

‘A masterpiece’ Sebastian Barry

The new novel about the transformative power of art, the weight of history and the strange connection we make with one another from the author of The Speckled People.

Narrated in the voice of Joseph Roth’s masterpiece Rebellion, Hugo Hamilton’s stunning, formally inventive new novel tells the life story of that book, initially rescued from the Nazi book-burning in Berlin in May 1933. It recounts the life of its Austrian-Jewish author, a writer on the run, and his intriguing wife Friederike who fell victim to mental illness.

And it tells a multitude of other stories: of Andreas Pum, a barrel-organ player down on his luck; of a young German American woman who finds a small map drawn by hand on its own blank page in the back, a thrilling mystery which will lead her to Berlin, the book’s birthplace.

The Pages carries profound echoes from the past into the present day and is an inspiring story of the survival of literature over a hundred years.

Publisher Review

Advance Praise for The Pages: 'Brilliant. It's a lovely, rich, strange book, very truthful and moving, with a beautiful ending' Tessa Hadley 'A powerful, powerful piece of work. A wounded book making its own book. It brings so much to life - Joseph Roth, Chechnya, Germany, the art of writing, the whole notion of banning books, the lips of the past speaking to the present' Colum McCann 'A terrific, engrossing novel. I love the narrator - such a great character - and the structure is clever and carefully woven, and very satisfying' Roddy Doyle 'An ingenious conceit' John Banville 'A masterpiece. Full of great sentences. But also sort of obliteratingly moving, strange, and right' Sebastian Barry 'Wonderful. It is as if Hugo Hamilton has invented a new form' Neil Jordan, author of Carnivalesque