A subversive, entertaining noir novel from one of Poland's most important writers and the winner of the 2018 Man Booker International Prize
Olga Tokarczuk is one of Poland's best and most beloved authors. In 2015 she received the German-Polish International Bridge Prize, as well as Poland's highest literary honour, the Nike and the Nike Readers' Prize. She also received a Nike in 2009 for her novel Flights, which won the Man Booker International Prize in 2018.
'Darkly humorous, deadly serious, and with a quirky cast of
characters that will stay with you forever, this is definitely not
to be missed.’
*Dua Lipa*
‘A magnificent writer.’
*Svetlana Alexievich, Nobel Prize in Literature laureate 2015*
‘A strongly voiced existential thriller.’
*Guardian*
‘A moral thriller that will keep you guessing until its very last
page.’
*Culture.pl*
‘This dazzling writer...feels the heartbeat of the natural
world…one of the exhilarations of this novel is working through a
complex truth about living among others.’
*Monthly*
‘Antonia Lloyd-Jones...has once again done a remarkable job of
capturing the uncanny distinction of Tokarczuk’s prose in English.
There is much to admire in this book and even more to learn.’
*Irish Times*
‘Translated with virtuosic precision and wit by Antonia
Lloyd-Jones, Tokarczuk’s prescient, provocative and furiously comic
fiction seethes with a Blakean conviction of the cleansing power of
rage: the vengeance of the weak when justice is denied.’
*New Statesman*
‘Entering Mrs. Duszejko’s rich, eccentric world is like waking up
in Oz, or falling into Wonderland. Everything, from the unreliable
mobile phone signal to the patterns of the wind, is attributed
character and motivation, so that the whole universe shimmers with
intent, agency and hidden meaning.’
*Big Issue*
‘Tokarczuk’s style, combining wit, uncanny metaphor, biological
truth and metaphysical profundity, is unique. Her books reveal just
how good literature can be.’
*Saturday Paper*
‘An astonishing amalgam of thriller, comedy and political treatise,
written by a woman who combines an extraordinary intellect with an
anarchic sensibility.’
*Guardian*
‘Sardonic humour and gothic plot-twists add a layer of macabre
rustic comedy. Antonia Lloyd-Jones, an outstanding Polish-English
translator, sculpts Janina’s English voice (complete with Blakean
capitalisations) with panache.’
*Economist*
‘Not your typical crime fiction...especially as each chapter
carries an epigraph from William Blake.'
*Times*
‘Drive Your Plow casts a mythical spell over a chilly psychological
thriller. It is so tantalisingly written, its developments so
precisely but invisibly measured out, that I found myself far more
likely to forget about the reviewing than the reading...a really
good book can change the way we see things...Drive Your Plow
unequivocally excels at this.’
*Review 31*
‘[Flights is] a guide to living. Every word, observation,
reflection and story embraces the importance of staying mobile in
thought as much as in being…This is as brilliant and life-affirming
as literature gets.’
*Saturday Paper, on Flights*
‘...darkly funny, politically charged, fiercely feminist, and
occasionally just a little bit weird, and it’s a wonderful salute
to both Lloyd-Jones’ sensitive translation and Tokarczuk’s
outspoken beliefs.’
*AU Review*
‘Skilfully translated by prize winning Antonia Lloyd-Jones, the
book illustrates the manipulative, political power of word and
phrasing.’
*Stuff.co.nz*
‘[A] mordant mix of whodunit, astrology, and the poetry of William
Blake.’
*Adelaide Advertiser*
'Olga Tokarczuk is a masterful storyteller who challenges
expectations of what a story can be.’
*Age*
‘Ridiculous and existentially challenging by turns, this is a
wildly inventive book.’
*Overland*
‘This book is a wild ride, full of harsh judgments and
sharp-tongued language, until the surprise end.’
*Australian*
‘Drive Your Plow is exhilarating in a way that feels fierce and
private, almost inarticulable; it’s one of the most existentially
refreshing novels I’ve read in a long time.’
*New Yorker*
‘A noir murder mystery that is less whodunnit than it is
existential inquiry...Antonia Lloyd-Jones’s translation from Polish
sparkles.'
*Millions*
‘A barbed and subversive tale about what it takes to challenge the
complacency of the powers that be.’
*Boston Globe*
‘[A] marvelously weird and fablelike mystery...This book is not a
mere whodunit: It’s a philosophical fairy tale about life and death
that’s been trying to spill its secrets.'
*New York Times*
'It is a murder mystery, and therefore it rattles along, but it’s
also a philosophical contemplation on man’s relationship with the
natural world, and our relationships to those that we deem to be
marginal—at the edge of society—and how we react to them…It’s a
fantastically rich book.’
*Five Books*
‘A blend of fairy tale and murder mystery, Tokarczuk explores how
we assign privilege and sanity to some over others as her
astrology-obsessed, animal-loving protagonist demands to be
heard.’
*TIME*
‘I thrilled to this story—a dark, strange, comic, twisted
masterpiece...It’s a great narrative voice, and I loved the book
from the first page.’
*Elizabeth Gilbert*
‘Brilliant, black-comic, eccentric writing. A novelist I only
recently discovered, who is fully worthy of her Nobel Prize.'
*Salman Rushdie*
‘Tokarczuk raises essential questions about whose voices are
privileged above others.’
*TIME*
‘A genre-defying novel, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
is part investigative thriller and part fairytale, with biting
social critique and a wicked sense of humor.’
*Book Riot*
‘Wonderfully weird...Despite its highbrow laurels, Tokarczuk’s
novel reads more like a Slavic episode of Murder, She Wrote than a
literary homework assignment.’
*Chatelaine*
‘A dark and fun mystery, a feminist comedy, plus a primer on
existentialism and animal rights. It’s the mix of high and low,
humor and darkness that makes Tokarczuk such a remarkable
chronicler of range of human emotions.’
*Literary Hub*
‘Crackling with energy and wholly original, Olga Tokarczuk dazzles
with this literary thriller that is both ecofeminist manifesto and
page-turning whodunit...This book is fierce and essential,
fundamentally challenging how we perceive the world.’
*Powell’s*
‘Haunting and beautifully written.’
*CrimeReads*
‘[A] wonderful Polish thriller and dark feminist comedy.’
*Sisters in Crime*
'Tocarczuk is one of the greats. Drive Your Plow has one of the
strangest narrators in literature, a kooky solitary with a Blake
and astronomy obsession. Like Herzog, she sends long letters to
people. Another genre defying masterpiece.'
*Rabih Alameddine, Lit Hub*
‘While it adopts the straightforward structure of a murder mystery,
[the book features] macabre humor and morbid philosophical
interludes [that] are distinctive to its author. . . [and an]
excellent payoff at the finale. . . . As for Ms. Tokarczuk, there’s
no doubt: She’s a gifted, original writer, and the appearance of
her novels in English is a welcome development.’
*Wall Street Journal*
‘A paean to nature. . . a sort of ode to Blake. . . [and] a lament.
. . Does Tokarczuk transcend Blake? Arguable —perhaps.’
*NPR*
‘A brilliant literary murder mystery.’
*Chicago Tribune*
‘Shimmering with subversive brilliance . . . . this is not your
conventional crime story—for Tokarczuk is not your conventional
writer. Through her extraordinary talent and intellect, and her
‘thinking novels,’ she ponders and tackles larger ecological and
political issues. The stakes are always high; Tokarczuk repeatedly
rises to the occasion and raises a call to arms.’
*HuffPost*
‘Sometimes the opening sentence of a first-person narrative can so
vividly capture the personality of its speaker that you immediately
want to spend all the time you can in their company. That’s the
case with . . . Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead . . .
[a] barbed and subversive tale about what it takes to challenge the
complacency of the powers that be.’
*Boston Globe*
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