Jim Crace – författare

The inspiration behind the Major Motion Picture starring Caleb Landry Jones'Extraordinary' - The Guardian'Inimitably excellent' - Boyd Tonkin, IndependentAs late summer steals in and the final pearls of barley are gleaned, a village comes under threat. A trio of outsiders - two men and a dangerously magnetic woman - arrives on the woodland borders triggering a series of events that will see Walter Thirsk's village unmade in just seven days: the harvest blackened by smoke and fear, cruel punishment meted out to the innocent, and allegations of witchcraft.But something even darker is at the heart of Walter's story, and he will be the only man left to tell it . . .‘Terrible, lyrical, beauty that is nothing like any other novel I have ever read' - Spectator'He is, quite simply, one of the great writers of our time’ - Colum McCannWinner of the James Tait Black PrizeWinner of the International IMPAC Dublin Literary AwardShortlisted for the Man Booker PrizeShortlisted for the Goldsmiths PrizeShortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction

Winner of the Whitbread First Novel Prize, the Guardian Fiction Prize and the David Higham Award.

‘The intense story of the pre-historical moment when stone yielded to bronze . . . Crace is a virtuoso’ Frank Kermode, New York Times A coastal community live prosperously crafting fine stone tools. But their proud insularity is breached by raiders, and in the violence a boy loses his arm. Useless as a knapper, he finds a role as the village storyteller, roaming far and returning home with fantastically embellished tales. When the arrival of a new metal threatens all their livelihoods, his fearless imagination becomes a lifesaving gift.‘His style is as simple as it is beautiful . . . Crace reveals the dignity in human labour and the power of the passing of time’Herald‘A deceptively simple book that explores profound ideas with a rare delicacy of touch’ Los Angeles Times‘Bewitching . . . brings a lost world to life and imbues it with a sense of wonder’ Sunday Times

Victor, an eighty-year-old multimillionaire, surveys his empire from the remoteness of his cloud-capped penthouse. Expensively insulated from the outside world, he nonetheless finds that memories of his impoverished childhood will not be kept so easily at bay. Focusing on the one area of vitality and chaos that remains in the streets below him, he formulates a plan to leave a mark on the city – one as indelible and disruptive as the mark the city left on him.Victor, an eighty-year-old multimillionaire, surveys his empire from the remoteness of his cloud-capped penthouse. Expensively insulated from the outside world, he nonetheless finds that memories of his impoverished childhood will not be kept so easily at bay. Focusing on the one area of vitality and chaos that remains in the streets below him, he formulates a plan to leave a mark on the city – one as indelible and disruptive as the mark the city left on him.

Winter 1836, and the Belle of Wilmington discharges its doomed crew on Wherrytown. Little daunted, the Captain and his sailors flirt, drink and brawl their way through the village, marooned along with Aymer Smith, a virgin and a blunderer in search of a wife. As vivid and alive as characters by Dickens, these men play out their dreams against a haunting, monumental landscape, bringing the New World back to the Old, with fresh discoveries, fresh hazards, fresh hopes.'The passions and mores of the 1830s are flawlessly delineated in this masterly novel, imbued with the tang and power of the sea' Independent

The Devil's Larder is a novel in sixty-four parts, exploring our deepest human concerns - love, hate, hopes and desires - through our relationship with food. Packed with delightful and subversive ingredients, with behaviour more suited to the bedroom than to the table, and with the most curious and idosyncratic of diners, this is a sensuous portrait of a community where meals are served with lashings of passion and recipes come spiced with unexpected challenges and hopes.'Delicious . . . the sheer quantity of inventiveness is astounding' Mail on Sunday 'Funny, frightening and erotic' The Times

Winner of the Whitbread Novel AwardShortlisted for the Booker Prize‘Dazzling, gritty brilliance’ – Sunday Times‘Completely captivating’ – Literary ReviewJim Crace's provocative retelling of Jesus' forty day fast in the desert is a classic that tampers with tradition. Moving and fascinating in equal measure, Quarantine is a stunningly realized novel from one of the great writers of our time. Under an endless and unforgiving sky, five travellers venture into the Judean wilderness in search of redemption. Instead, amidst the barren rocks, they are met by a dangerous man, Musa, and fall under his dark influence. As the unforgiving days and bitter nights erode their resolve, it becomes clear that one among them will go further than the rest: a fervent, solitary figure, he denies the temptations of his neighbours, and, ultimately, the needs of his own body.‘One of the finest novels I’ve read in years’ – The Times‘Crace’s desert shimmers with a sense of the miraculous’– Express on Sunday‘Stunning. A writer of hallucinatory skill’ – John UpdikePart of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize and now a film adaptation starring Caleb Landry Jones. Jim Crace creates a haunting world in Harvest.‘Extraordinary’ – The Guardian‘Inimitably excellent’ – Boyd Tonkin, The IndependentAs late summer steals in and the final pearls of barley are gleaned, a village comes under threat. A trio of outsiders – two men and a dangerously magnetic woman – arrive on the woodland borders triggering a series of events that will see Walter Thirsk’s village unmade in just seven days: the harvest blackened by smoke and fear, cruel punishment meted out to the innocent, and allegations of witchcraft.But something even darker is at the heart of Walter’s story, and he will be the only man left to tell it . . .‘Terrible, lyrical beauty that is nothing like any other novel I have ever read’ – Spectator‘He is, quite simply, one of the great writers of our time’ – Colum McCannWinner of the James Tait Black PrizeWinner of the International IMPAC Dublin Literary AwardShortlisted for the Goldsmiths PrizeShortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical FictionNow part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the very best of modern literature.

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD.A couple lie naked in the dunes at Baritone Bay, at the spot where, almost thirty years before, they had first had sex as students. Nostalgia has sent Celice and Joseph back to their singing stretch of coast, but in the seeming calm of the afternoon they meet a brutal and unexpected fate – one which will still their bodies but not their love, and certainly not their story.Winner of the National Book Critics Circle AwardA couple lie naked in the dunes at Baritone Bay, at the spot where, almost thirty years before, they had first had sex as students. Nostalgia has sent Celice and Joseph back to their singing stretch of coast, but in the seeming calm of the afternoon they meet a brutal and unexpected fate – one which will still their bodies but not their love, and certainly not their story.

A devastated America exists in an imagined future. Its technologies are forgotten, its communities have splintered and its refugees, reversing the course of history, travel eastwards in search of safety and a new start. Among them are Franklin and Margaret, young, bereft, forced together by circumstance; but finding that love, courage and determination can endure even as a country breaks slowly apart.

From the Man Booker shortlisted author of Harvest.Alfred Busi, famed in his town for his music and songs, is mourning the recent death of his wife and quietly living out his days in the large villa he has always called home. Then one night Busi is attacked by a creature he disturbs as it raids the contents of his larder. Busi is convinced that what assaulted him was no animal, but a child, ‘innocent and wild’, and his words fan the flames of old rumour – of an ancient race of people living in the bosk surrounding the town – and new controversy: the town’s paupers, the feral wastrels at its edges, must be dealt with. Once and for all. Lyrical and warm, intimate and epic, The Melody by Jim Crace tracks the few days that will see Busi and the town he loves altered irrevocably. This is a story about grief and ageing, about reputation and the loss of it, about love and music and the peculiar way myth seeps into real life. And it is a political novel too – a rallying cry to protect those we persecute.'The Melody takes its place among his finest [novels] . . . an ecological fable for modern times' Guardian

‘No one is better . . . eden sees Crace at the top of his game’ - TelegraphTrouble has come to the garden. Its inhabitants live an eternal and unblemished life, tending to the bountiful fields, orchards and lakes, and serving their angelic masters. But now one of the gardeners has escaped, breaching the walls and making her way into the world beyond; a land of poverty, sickness and death - as well as liberty. The angels know there are those who would go to the ends of the earth to find her. Perhaps another fall is coming . . .‘Vivid and poetic . . . Crace writes with great flair and inimitable imagination’ - Financial Times‘Since announcing his retirement in 2013, Jim Crace has had more comebacks than Kanye West,something for which we should all be thankful’ - Spectator

‘No one is better . . . eden sees Crace at the top of his game’ - TelegraphTrouble has come to the garden. Its inhabitants live an eternal and unblemished life, tending to the bountiful fields, orchards and lakes, and serving their angelic masters. But now one of the gardeners has escaped, breaching the walls and making her way into the world beyond; a land of poverty, sickness and death - as well as liberty. The angels know there are those who would go to the ends of the earth to find her. Perhaps another fall is coming . . .‘Vivid and poetic . . . Crace writes with great flair and inimitable imagination’ - Financial Times‘Since announcing his retirement in 2013, Jim Crace has had more comebacks than Kanye West,something for which we should all be thankful’ - Spectator