To Calais, In Ordinary Time
- 2 Jul 2020
- 9781786896773
- £9.99
- 400 pp
- 129×198mm
- 29 Aug 2019
- 9781786896766
- £14.99
- 400 pp
- 153×234mm
- 29 Aug 2019
- 9781786896759
- £7.99
- 400 pp
In a few words
The new novel about home, belonging, love, courage and identity, set in the fourteenth century, from the Booker-longlisted author of The People’s Act of Love
In a few words
The new novel about home, belonging, love, courage and identity, set in the fourteenth century, from the Booker-longlisted author of The People’s Act of Love
In a few words
The new novel about home, belonging, love, courage and identity, set in the fourteenth century, from the Booker-longlisted author of The People’s Act of Love
Fans of intelligent historical fiction will be enthralled by a story so original and so fully imagined. Meek shows the era as alien, which it is, and doesn’t falsify it by assimilating it to ours. But his characters are recognisably warm and human
Hilary Mantel
An inventive and original novel that captures the distant past and pins it to the page
Fans of intelligent historical fiction will be enthralled by a story so original and so fully imagined. Meek shows the era as alien, which it is, and doesn’t falsify it by assimilating it to ours. But his characters are recognisably warm and human
Hilary Mantel
An inventive and original novel that captures the distant past and pins it to the page
Fans of intelligent historical fiction will be enthralled by a story so original and so fully imagined. Meek shows the era as alien, which it is, and doesn’t falsify it by assimilating it to ours. But his characters are recognisably warm and human
Hilary Mantel
An inventive and original novel that captures the distant past and pins it to the page
More about
the book
‘Inventive and original’ The Times
‘Fans of intelligent historical fiction will be enthralled’ Hilary Mantel
Shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction
Longlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction
Three journeys. One road.
England, 1348. A gentlewoman flees an odious arranged marriage, a proctor sets out for a monastery in Avignon and a young ploughman in search of freedom is on his way to volunteer with a company of archers. All come together on the road to Calais. In the other direction comes the Black Death, the plague that will wipe out half of the population of Northern Europe.
To Calais, In Ordinary Time is an exploration of love, death and power, against the backdrop of catastrophe.
More about
the book
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION
LONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION
A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE TIMES, GUARDIAN, SUNDAY TIMES, DAILY EXPRESS, SCOTSMAN and SPECTATOR
Three journeys. One road.
England, 1348. A gentlewoman flees an odious arranged marriage, a Scots proctor sets out for Avignon and a young ploughman in search of freedom is on his way to volunteer with a company of archers. All come together on the road to Calais.
Coming in their direction from across the Channel is the Black Death, the plague that will wipe out half of the population of Northern Europe. As the journey unfolds, overshadowed by the archers’ past misdeeds and clerical warnings of the imminent end of the world, the wayfarers must confront the nature of their loves and desires.
A tremendous feat of language and empathy, it summons a medieval world that is at once uncannily plausible, utterly alien and eerily reflective of our own. James Meek’s extraordinary To Calais, In Ordinary Time is a novel about love, class, faith, loss, gender and desire – set against one of the biggest cataclysms of human history.
More about
the book
‘Inventive and original’ The Times
‘Fans of intelligent historical fiction will be enthralled’ Hilary Mantel
Shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction
Longlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction
Three journeys. One road.
England, 1348. A gentlewoman flees an odious arranged marriage, a proctor sets out for a monastery in Avignon and a young ploughman in search of freedom is on his way to volunteer with a company of archers. All come together on the road to Calais. In the other direction comes the Black Death, the plague that will wipe out half of the population of Northern Europe.
To Calais, In Ordinary Time is an exploration of love, death and power, against the backdrop of catastrophe.
A glorious imaginative feat, full of complex, compelling, believable characters. Rarely have I been so captivated by a novel, so keen to hurry back to it and reimmerse myself in its world
Sarah Waters
Meek’s novel about the Black Death of 1348 has acquired an entirely unpredictable topicality . . . Captivating . . . Meek captures the mystery, squalor and occasional beauty of its medieval setting perfectly, and the encroaching horror that awaits all its characters gives the fascinating narrative an awful but compelling momentum
Meek employs great linguistic invention and remarkable imagination to conjure up a world in which readers rapidly become immersed
An astounding linguistic fantasy about the advent of the Black Death. French, Anglo-Saxon and Latin collide in a world of fake news, uncertain sexual borders and the dread of a catastrophe which looks in some ways very much like our own
Philip Hensher
Spectator, Books of the YearA glorious imaginative feat, full of complex, compelling, believable characters. Rarely have I been so captivated by a novel, so keen to hurry back to it and reimmerse myself in its world
Sarah Waters
Meek employs great linguistic invention and remarkable imagination to conjure up a world in which readers rapidly become immersed
An astounding linguistic fantasy about the advent of the Black Death. French, Anglo-Saxon and Latin collide in a world of fake news, uncertain sexual borders and the dread of a catastrophe which looks in some ways very much like our own
Philip Hensher
Spectator, Books of the YearMeek brilliantly creates a variety of voices, and a language appropriate to the 14th century, for a story of the distant past with unsettling echoes of the present
A glorious imaginative feat, full of complex, compelling, believable characters. Rarely have I been so captivated by a novel, so keen to hurry back to it and reimmerse myself in its world
Sarah Waters
Meek employs great linguistic invention and remarkable imagination to conjure up a world in which readers rapidly become immersed
An astounding linguistic fantasy about the advent of the Black Death. French, Anglo-Saxon and Latin collide in a world of fake news, uncertain sexual borders and the dread of a catastrophe which looks in some ways very much like our own
Philip Hensher
Spectator, Books of the YearMeek brilliantly creates a variety of voices, and a language appropriate to the 14th century, for a story of the distant past with unsettling echoes of the present
James Meek
View profileJames Meek is the author of six novels including The People’s Act of Love which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won both the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and the Scottish Arts Council Award. It has been published in more than thirty countries. Meek has also written two collections of short stories and two books of non-fiction, Private Island, which won the 2015 Orwell Prize and Dreams of Leaving and Remaining. He is a Contributing Editor to the London Review of Books and writes regularly for the Guardian and New York Times. He lives in London. In 2020, To Calais, In Ordinary Time was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and longlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.
James Meek
View profileJames Meek is the author of six novels including The People’s Act of Love which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won both the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and the Scottish Arts Council Award. It has been published in more than thirty countries. Meek’s last novel The Heart Broke In was shortlisted for the Costa Book Award and he has also written two collections of short stories and two books of non-fiction, Private Island, which won the 2015 Orwell Prize and Dreams of Leaving and Remaining. He is a Contributing Editor to the London Review of Books and writes regularly for the Guardian and New York Times. He lives in London. In 2020, To Calais, In Ordinary Time was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and longlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.
James Meek
View profileJames Meek is the author of six novels including The People’s Act of Love which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won both the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and the Scottish Arts Council Award. It has been published in more than thirty countries. Meek has also written two collections of short stories and two books of non-fiction, Private Island, which won the 2015 Orwell Prize and Dreams of Leaving and Remaining. He is a Contributing Editor to the London Review of Books and writes regularly for the Guardian and New York Times. He lives in London. In 2020, To Calais, In Ordinary Time was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and longlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.
