An incisive crash course in philosophy, religion, literature and culture from Pulitzer Prize finalist Joy Williams

Joy Williams offers ninety-nine illuminations on mortality as she brings her powers of observation to Azrael, the Angel of Death and transporter of souls. Balancing the extraordinary and the humble, the bizarre and the beatific, the book presents Azrael as a thoughtful and troubled protagonist as he confronts the holy impossibility of his task, his uneasy relationship with Death and his friendship with the Devil. In this follow-up to Williams'' 99 Stories of God , a collection of connected beings - ranging from ordinary people to great artists such as Kafka, Nietzche, Bach and Rilke to dogs, birds, horses and butterflies - experience the varying fate of the soul, transient yet everlasting. Profound, sorrowful, witty and ecstatic, Concerning the Future of Souls will leave readers awestruck in their confrontation of life in the face of death.

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Joy Williams is the author of four novels - the most recent, The Quick and the Dead, was a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 - and three collections of stories, as well as Ill Nature, a book of essays that was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Among her many honours are the Rea Award for the Short Story and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Tucson, Arizona, and Laramie, Wyoming.

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'Filled with humour, canny allusion, beauty, and a profundity born of glimpsing human lives' New Yorker Book of the Year 2024

'Williams is one of the most pioneering fiction writers of our time' Andrew Motion, New Statesman Book of the Year 2024

'Witty, peculiar and brilliant' Telegraph Christmas Pick 2024

'A book completed by a master of the craft. Prepare to be moved' Guardian

'Holy, gorgeous and politically red-hot masterpieces' Daily Telegraph

'An intricate, perfectly articulated work of art' Times Literary Supplement

Joy Williams offers ninety-nine illuminations on mortality as she brings her powers of observation to Azrael, the Angel of Death and transporter of souls.

Balancing the extraordinary and the humble, the bizarre and the beatific, the book presents Azrael as a thoughtful and troubled protagonist as he confronts the holy impossibility of his task, his uneasy relationship with Death and his friendship with the Devil. In this follow-up to Williams' 99 Stories of God, a collection of connected beings - ranging from ordinary people to great artists such as Kafka, Nietzsche, Bach and Rilke to dogs, birds, horses and butterflies - experience the varying fate of the soul, transient yet everlasting.

Profound, sorrowful, witty and ecstatic, Concerning the Future of Souls will leave readers awestruck in their confrontation of life in the face of death.