Nine

'A major work of modern fiction... He's an accomplished stylist with an eye for the telling detail that brings characters and situations to life... Like the Dublin of Joyce's Ulysses, the city itself becomes a central personality of the book... I caught a flavor of Hamsun, Sartre, Genet and Kafka in Stasiuk's scalpel-like but evocative writing' - Irvine Welsh, New York Times Book Review

Tells the story of Pawel, a young businessman, in debt to loan sharks, seeking help from former friends, many of whom are prominent in the city's drug-dealing underground. Set in Warsaw, this novel portrays people in transition and a nation in the re-making.

Pawel, a young Polish businessman, is in trouble; in debt to loan sharks his only hope lies with former friends, many of whom are now prominent in Warsaw's drug-dealing underground. Embarking on a desperate fool's-gold chase through the city's grimy apartments and creaking transport system Pawel struggles for survival as part of a generation adrift in moral space and disconnected from family, neighbours and friends.

Nine is a brilliant novel from one of Europe's finest writers: both an existential crime novel and a major work of literature.