Continent

Winner of the Whitbread First Novel Prize, the Guardian Fiction Prize and the David Higham Award. `Hard and actual in observation, clearly and richly imagined, remarkably original' Guardian A novel in seven stories, Continent is an exploration of the cultures, communities and natural life of an entirely imaginary realm. Built on rich seams of myth and metaphor, this new, seventh continent is strange, atmospheric and yet not wholly a mirage, for its inhabitants are disarmingly familiar, known to us through their loves, their hopes and their struggles to make sense of life. On its first publication over twenty years ago, this spellbinding book marked the arrival of one of the most inventive minds at work in modern fiction. `Fuses folklore and political parable, moral fable and myth, into something rather original and also very modern' The Times `Makes us see our own world more clearly . . . brilliant, provocative and delightful' New York Times