Ballad of a Small Player

Lawrence Osborne is a critically acclaimed novelist, journalist and screenwriter. He is the author of eight novels, including Ballad of a Small Player, Beautiful Animals and The Forgiven. His non-fiction ranges from memoir through travelogue to essays, including Bangkok Days, The Naked Tourist and The Wet and the Dry. His novels have been chosen as Books of the Year by the Guardian, the Observer, the Daily Telegraph, the New Statesman, the Daily Mail, The Economist, the New Yorker and the New York Times. The Forgiven was made into a film in 2022 starring Jessica Chastain and Ralph Fiennes and Ballad of a Small Player starring Colin Farrell and Tilda Swinton was released on Netflix in 2025.

"A modern Graham Greene... into this relatively quiet period for British fiction, someone remarkable and unexpected has emerged fully armed with a formidable, masterly grip on the British novel. At precisely the point where most novelists start to show signs of flagging, Osborne has hit his creative, fictional stride...and has arrived as a thrilling, exceptional talent in British fiction's landscape." -- Robert Collins Sunday Times "A perfectly written existential thriller, a spooky, gripping, heart-in-your-mouth read that has profound things to say about the only god who rules human affairs - chance." -- Neel Mukherjee New Statesman, Books of the Year 2014 "Damn. Another writer I have to care about... dark, brilliant and about as ignorable as a switchblade. " New York Times "The Ballad of a Small Player shares the exoticism and East-West disconnect of The Quiet American, the unresolved supernaturalism of The Heart of the Matter and Loser Takes All's bittersweet relationship with the gaming tables. If Osborne's book is a love letter to gambling, it's the kind written at 3am to an indifferent ex after an evening at the bar -- an ode to self-destruction. A brisk, electrifying read... the most ambiguous, and therefore the most enjoyable, kind of ghost story. The Ballad of a Small Player remains elusive, and is all the better for that." -- Adrian Turpin Literary Review "Hypnotic, razor-sharp in its insights, compelling... in Osborne's hands, the moments of suspense are handled with so much skill that we sometimes read them more as memoir than elements of a thriller." -- Tash Aw NPR