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 GhostwrittenAbout the BookDavid Mitchell’s electrifying debut novel takes readers on a mesmerizing trek across a world of human experience through a series of ingeniously linked narratives. Oblivious to the bizarre ways in which their lives intersect, nine characters-a terrorist in Okinawa, a record-shop clerk in Tokyo, a money-laundering British financier in Hong Kong, an old woman running a tea shack in China, a transmigrating “noncorpum” entity seeking a human host in Mongolia, a gallery-attendant-cum-art-thief in Petersburg, a drummer in London, a female physicist in Ireland, and a radio deejay in New York-hurtle toward a shared destiny of astonishing impact. Like the book’s one non-human narrator, Mitchell latches onto his host characters and invades their lives with parasitic precision, making Ghostwritten a sprawling and brilliant literary relief map of the modern world.
Praise:"Mitchell… has a gift for fiction’s natural pleasures–intricate surprises, insidiously woven narratives, ingenious voices… " "Ghostwritten is also elegantly composed, gracefully plotted and full of humor… [It] recall[s] Tolstoy and Dostoevsky in its emotional scope and its ambitions. Like the great Russians, Mitchell makes us feel that more is at stake than individual lives, although it’s by individual lives that pain and loss are measured." "Mitchell deftly sketches each character to such a compelling extent that you become totally immersed… His nine characters and their random but fateful interactions provide a playful, suspenseful foray into our ever-shrinking world." "Nine tales set in nine countries are intricately woven together in this impressive debut novel." "An intricately assembled Faberge egg of a novel, full of sly and sometimes beautiful surprises… In an era in which much literary fiction is characterized by unearned ironies and glib cynicism, it’s hard not to be impressed by the humanism that animates Mitchell’s book… Worth a dozen of the morally anorexic novels that regularly come down the pipe." "Ghostwritten is a marvelous puzzle. It takes time to figure together the disparate pieces, but patience in this case pays off handsomely. Once assembled, the story hums with significance… [An] amazing first novel." "David Mitchell’s first novel is a firework display… The assurance and panache are truly remarkable… This is a remarkable novel by a young writer of remarkable talent."
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David Mitchell is the acclaimed author of the novels Black Swan Green, which was selected as one of the 10 Best Books of the Year by Time; Cloud Atlas, which was a Man Booker Prize finalist; Number9Dream, which was short-listed for the Man Booker as well as the James Tait Black Memorial Prize; and Ghostwritten, awarded the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for best book by a writer under thirty-five and short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award. He lives in Ireland.
