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Apeirogon

a novel about Israel, Palestine and shared grief, nominated for the 2020 Booker Prize

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Apeirogon

By: Colum McCann
Narrated by: Colum McCann
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Bloomsbury presents Apeirogon written and read by Colum McCann.

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2020 BOOKER PRIZE
SHORTLISTED FOR THE PRIX MÉDICIS AND THE PRIX FEMINA
WINNER OF THE PRIX DE MEILLEUR LIVRE ETRANGER

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A BBC BOOK OF 2020

CHOSEN AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE SUNDAY TIMES, OBSERVER, GUARDIAN, i PAPER, FINANCIAL TIMES, NEW STATESMAN, SCOTSMAN, IRISH TIMES, BBC.COM, WATERSTONES.COM

‘A wondrous book. It left me hopeful’ Elizabeth Strout
‘You have to read Apeirogon’ Sunday Times
‘Nothing like any book you’ve ever read’ Michael Cunningham
‘Quite extraordinary’ Kamila Shamsie

The novel of a lifetime about two men and their daughters: divided by conflict, yet united in grief.

Rami Elhanan and Bassam Aramin live near one another – yet they exist worlds apart. Rami is Israeli. Bassam is Palestinian. Rami’s license plate is yellow. Bassam’s license plate is green. It takes Rami fifteen minutes to drive to the West Bank. The same journey for Bassam takes an hour and a half.

Both men have lost their daughters. Rami’s thirteen-year-old girl Smadar was killed by a suicide bomber while out shopping with her friends. Bassam’s ten-year-old daughter Abir was shot and killed by a member of the border police outside her school. There was a candy bracelet in her pocket she hadn’t had time to eat yet.

The men become the best of friends.

In this epic novel – named for a shape with a countably infinite number of sides – Colum McCann crosses centuries and continents, stitching time, art, history, nature and politics into a tapestry of friendship, love, loss and belonging. Musical, muscular, delicate and soaring, Apeirogon is the novel for our times.

'A quite extraordinary novel. Colum McCann has found the form and voice to tell the most complex of stories, with an unexpected friendship between two men at its powerfully beating heart' KAMILA SHAMSIE©2020 Colum McCann (P)2020 Penguin Random House LLC Family Life Metaphysical & Visionary Political Middle East
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Critic reviews

Nothing like any book you’ve ever read ... Think of discovering an entirely unprecedented, and profoundly true, narrative form. Think about feeling that the very idea of the novel, of what it can be and what it’s capable of containing, has been expanded, forever ... All I can really tell you is, read McCann’s book. It’s an important book (MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM)
This is a wondrous book. In an accretion of splendid detail, McCann writes with an amazing abundance of humanity as he describes the age old story of inhumanity to man. The affect is absolutely staggering, it will bring you to your knees. Writing at the top of his game, McCann brings us a book that we sorely need. It left me hopeful; this is its gift. What a read! (ELIZABETH STROUT)
Now you have to read Apeirogon ... Delirious and thrilling, spectacular
Weaves documentary and imagination into its tough physical fabric . .. Frequently beautiful … Often dazzles … At the core of this fractal fiction is a simple, radiant myth: "The hero makes a friend of his enemy"
Brilliant ... powerful and prismatic ... Apeirogon is an empathy engine, utterly collapsing the gulf between teller and listener ... It achieves its aim by merging acts of imagination and extrapolation with historical fact. But it’s undisputably a novel, and, to my mind, an exceedingly important one. It does far more than make an argument for peace; it is, itself, an agent of change
A profound account of pain and healing …
The closest recent comparisons – in terms of ambition and intention, if not style – might be Claudia Rankine’s genre defying works on race such as Citizen: An American Lyric or Maggie Nelson’s exploration in The Red Parts and Jane: A Murder of the murder of her aunt, books that transcend the usual categories and set out to challenge and amaze
A jagged, fractured, teeming novel … Apeirogon is a daring structural feat, a conspicuously elaborate and multivalent piece of novelistic engineering … The distilled and fractured form has a glistening poetry
An apeirogon is a shape with a countably infinite number of sides – and Colum McCann’s transcendent book is full of hundreds of thought-provoking, emotional segments … McCann turns these haunting true stories into engrossing fiction, and he does so with poetic power
In the spirit of Picasso’s Guernica, Apeirogon reminds us that such incandescent art evokes humility and light in the face of oppression and loss
A loving, thoughtful, grueling novel
All stars
Most relevant
The title is so fitting! This book is fabulous - simultaneously helps the reader to understand the situation better, and to understand how little they understand. I shed many a tear whilst listening to this wonderful audiobook.

Brilliant!! So thought provoking, tear jerking, and raw.

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Beautifully nuanced book about a complex topic. Reading poetic in authors own voice but of, Colum, if you’re going to be saying foreign words, please consult someone so you get them right-chamsin, Nurit, Yael. kefiyeh. And many other words in Hebrew repeatedly mis-said. Annoyingly disruptive

Oi Colum

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This book was so beautiful. The observance of birds in the natural world helped make a devastating read a little more bearable. Although with all that is going on at the moment maybe we shouldn’t be looking for sweeteners.

Beautiful writing

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A beautiful, tragic tale of loss, grief, war, and friendship. The different strands of storyline are supberly woven together in a complex but truly beautiful form, moving across place and time. The title is apt. A haunting novel narrated sensitively and thoughtfully.

Superbly crafted and narrated

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Beautifully written, touching, highly intellectual. Colum goes into the most minuscule details to make the story come alive. The way the book is written (lots, LOTS of short chapters, jumping between different characters, time, and seemingly unrelated stories) keeps you on your toes, but sometimes also makes it tricky to follow.

Beautifully written, but not an easy read

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