Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2025.On losing her father, Teresa returns to a small town on the Greek coast – the same place she visited when grieving her mother nine years ago. She immerses herself again in the life of the town, observing the inhabitants going about their business, a quiet backdrop for her reckoning with herself. An episode from her first visit resurfaces vividly – her encounter with John, a man struggling to come to terms with ...

A stunning novel which examines our fears, prejudices and desires, from the author of Ghost MacIndoe and Invisible.On a beach in southern England, a dog returns to its owner with a human hand in its mouth. The hand belongs to a homeless eccentric named Henry, who has been wandering the south-west of England for the last thirty years. As the local policeman and his accomplice piece together Henry’s movements prior to his death, talking to those who knew and watched...

Jonathan Buckley’s ‘Ghost MacIndoe’ is a bold and ambitious novel that focuses on the life of Alexander MacIndoe, a self-centred man who is characterised only by his physical beauty and a complete lack of will.Jonathan Buckley’s third novel opens with Alexander MacIndoe’s earliest memory: a February morning in 1944, in the aftermath of the second wave of German air-raids. Set mainly in London and Brighton, Ghost MacIndoe is the story of the next fifty-four years of Alexander’s life...

A woman named Naomi arrives at her sister's house, intending, it seems, to say goodbye. She is abandoning her city life for a remote Scottish retreat, which she will share with a man called Bernát, whom she considers some kind of visionary. In a sequence of stories filtered through multiple re-tellings, she illuminates the character of this elusive individual. One story seems of special significance: about Afonso, an Amazon boatman, who could be the last speaker of his mother tongue, a lan...

Daniel Brennan, approaching the premature end of his life, retreats to a room in his brother's suburban house. To divert himself and to entertain Ellen, his carer, he writes the journal that is Telescope, blurring truth, gossip and fiction in vignettes of his own life and the lives of those close to him. Above all he focuses on his siblings: mercurial Celia, whose life as a teacher in Italy seems to have run aground, and kindly Charlie, the entrepreneur of the family.Enric...

Dominic Pattison's life is one of level contentment: his marriage has proved happy and durable; his business, too, is successful.And then Sam Williams, a builder and ex-squaddie, enters his life. Sam claims to be his son.Yet is Sam who he says he is? After almost thirty years, Dominic can remember little of the affair with Sam's mother. His instinct is to recoil from this aggressive and volatile stranger, who could, with just a few words, take his life apart. But Sam refuses to be ...

A lyrical and beautifully realised novel about a blind man's experiences of the world around him, from the acclaimed author of Ghost MacIndoe.Edward Morton, a blind translator, arrives at the Oak, an ailing spa hotel in the west of England, intending to stay for a few days to visit his family and to work. The manager of the Oak, Malcolm Caldecott, is preparing for the closure of the hotel, and for the visit of Stephanie, the daughter he has not seen for eight years. Eloni ...

In the small hours of January 1st, a man begins to write, having watched Le Grand Concert de la Nuit, a film in which a former lover - Imogen - plays a major role. For the next year, he writes something every day.His journal is a ritual of commemoration and an investigation of the character of Imogen and her relationships - with himself; with her family and friends; with other lovers.Imogen is an elusive subject, and The Great Concert of the Night is an in...

The lapping of the sea was a lesson in mortality...**' Live,' he heard, with each whisper of the water. 'Live; live; live.'Through Lucas Judd, the dead make contact with the living, or so he believes, or professes to believe. He is a man of such penetrating insight and empathy that many have faith in his gift. They confide in him, and find consolation. Even Joshua, his sceptical young neighbour, seems drawn by his compassionate sophistry. But when Erin, a much younger woma...

The small Tuscan town of Castelluccio is preparing for its annual festival, a spectacular pageant in which a leading role will be taken by the self-exiled English painter Gideon Westfall. A man proudly out of step with modernity, Westfall is regarded by some as a maestro, but in Castelluccio - as in the wider art world - he has his enemies, and his niece - just arrived from England - is no great admirer either. At the same time a local girl is missing, a disappearance that seems to implica...

En été, Castelluccio, un village de Toscane, se prépare à la grande fête populaire en l’honneur de Zénon, son saint patron. Pendant le carnaval, Gideon Westfall, un peintre anglais exilé depuis de nombreuses années, incarne le personnage central de l’histoire de la ville. Le reste du temps, la pratique obsessionnelle de son art l’isole.Entièrement tourné vers la Renaissance, le peintre refuse toute forme de modernité, ce qui provoque chez certains habitants critiques et incompréhens...

Naomi arrive chez sa sœur Kate avec l’intention de lui dire au revoir. Un au revoir aux curieux accents d’adieu. Elle quitte Londres pour se retirer au fin fond de l’Écosse en compagnie d’un certain Bernát qu’elle considère comme un visionnaire. À travers une série d’histoires et les méandres tortueux de la mémoire, Naomi révèle peu à peu l’insaisissable Bernát, imposteur ou génie. Entre illusions et réalité, plusieurs strates de récits se jettent dans le fleuve des jours et mènent à une f...