Description

‘ONE OF THE MOST BRILLIANTLY INVENTIVE WRITERS OF THIS, OR ANY, COUNTRY’ INDEPENDENT
Shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial and Commonwealth Writers’ Prizes
‘Thrillingly suspenseful’
SUNDAY TIMES

‘Stunning’
INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

‘Brilliant’
THE TIMES

‘Entirely original’
OBSERVER

‘A classic’
WASHINGTON POST

The Sunday Times Number One bestseller from the author of Cloud Atlas and Utopia Avenue
In your hands is a place like no other: a tiny, man-made island in the bay of Nagasaki, for two hundred years the sole gateway between Japan and the West. Here, in the dying days of the eighteenth century, a young Dutch clerk arrives to make his fortune. Instead he loses his heart.

Step onto the streets of Dejima and mingle with scheming traders, spies, interpreters, servants and concubines as two cultures converge. In a tale of integrity and corruption, passion and power, the key is control – of riches and minds, and over death itself.

PRAISE FOR DAVID MITCHELL
‘A thrilling and gifted writer’
FINANCIAL TIMES

‘Dizzyingly, dazzlingly good’
DAILY MAIL

‘Mitchell is, clearly, a genius’
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

‘An author of extraordinary ambition and skill’
INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

‘A superb storyteller’
THE NEW YORKER

Publisher Review

Compared with almost everything being written now, it is vertiginously ambitious - and brilliant * The Times * Lose yourself in a world of incredible scope, originality and imaginative brilliance. -- Katy Guest * Independent on Sunday * A novel which actually deserves the accolade "tour de force". -- Kamila Shamsie, Books of the Year * Daily Telegraph * The most impressive fictional mind of his generation. * Observer * Spectacularly accomplished and thrillingly suspenseful. * Sunday Times * Confirms Mitchell as one of the more fascinating and fearless writers alive. -- Dave Eggers * New York Times Book Review *