**Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2024 ** ''A work of non-fiction . . . but it has all the complexity of emotional heft of a great novel . . . Question 7 sets the high-water mark for what the genre [of memoir] can be'' Sunday Times ''There''s so much . . . in Flanagan''s beautiful, unclassifiable novel-cum-memoir . . . That it is a masterpiece is without question'' Observer This is a book about the choices we make and the chain reaction that follows . . . By way of H. G. Wells and Rebecca West''s affair, through 1930s nuclear physics, to Flanagan''s father working as a slave labourer near Hiroshima when the atom bomb is dropped, this daisy chain of events reaches fission when a young man finds himself trapped in a rapid on a wild river, not knowing if he is to live or to die. Flanagan has created a love song to his island home and his parents and the terrible past that delivered him to that place. Through a hypnotic melding of dream, history, science, and memory, Question 7 shows how our lives so often arise out of the stories of others and the stories we invent about ourselves. ''I was fascinated, troubled, and enchanted by this strange and extraordinary work... I can think of nothing else quite like it'' Sarah Perry ''Mighty in its rage and tenderness: his most momentous book yet'' Laura Cumming ''Spectacular . . . It seems to me a book that will have an overwhelming effect on readers. It certainly did on me'' Colm Toibin '' Question 7 could be Richard Flanagan''s greatest yet'' Guardian ''Fiercely alive and genuinely hard to put down'' Mark Haddon

Autorentext

Richard Flanagan has been described by the Washington Post as 'one of our greatest living novelists' and as 'among the most versatile writers in the English language' by the New York Review of Books. He won the Commonwealth Prize for Gould's Book of Fish and the Booker Prize for The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Question 7 was shortlisted for the Prix Femina étranger and the Prix du meilleur livre étranger as a novel, and won the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. He is the first and only author ever to have won both the Booker and Baillie Gifford prizes.

A major television series of The Narrow Road to the Deep North is forthcoming, directed by Justin Kurzel and starring Jacob Elordi and Ciarán Hinds.

Klappentext

**THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize

From one kiss comes a chain reaction - a masterpiece of memoir from the winner of the Baillie Gifford and the Booker prize

'Extraordinary' Sarah Perry
'Masterpiece' Colm Tóibín
'Wholly original. I absolutely loved it' David Nicholls
'A brilliant, brilliant book' James Rebanks**

By way of H. G. Wells and Rebecca West's affair, through 1930s nuclear physics, to Flanagan's father working as a slave labourer near Hiroshima, this chain of events culminates in a young man finding himself trapped in a rapid on a wild river, not knowing if he is to live or to die...

'The strangest and most beautiful memoir I've ever read. Magnificent' Tim Winton

'Flanagan's finest book... A brilliant meditation on the past of one man and the history that coalesced in his existence' Guardian

'Flanagan's portrayal of his quiet, brave father and his loving, resilient mother is exquisite...masterful' Daily Telegraph

'Intimate, beautiful, unsparing and profound' Anna Funder