House of Day, House of Night

‘A magnificent writer.’
— Svetlana Alexievich, 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate

‘House of Day, House of Night is full of death, destruction and dreams. Written in 1998, and now translated into English, it is what Tokarczuk calls a “constellation” novel. It is made up of bits of memoir, dream diary, metaphysical musings and sketches of life in Tokarczuk’s adopted home of rural Krajanow, southwest Poland…. House of Day, House of Night is packed with chewy philosophical ideas and spellbinding images.’
— Johanna Thomas-Corr, The Times

‘Alongside history and memory, Tokarczuk explores identity, transformation and the meaning of home…. Tokarczuk’s reflections are saturated with sensory language that conveys a vivid sense of the landscape and seasonal change – floods, meadow fires and gales. She also displays unnerving prescience in recognizing the latent force of technology and AI: the narrator imagines her partner’s sky photographs being uploaded into a computer to create one single image: “which is sure to mean something . . . And then we’ll know.”’
— Lucy Popescu, Financial Times

‘What emerges from this cornucopia of curiosities is a rich and pulsating view into life itself, which the narrator views as “beautiful despite the terrible things other people say about it.” It’s a marvel.’
— Publishers Weekly, starred review

‘As a whole, the book is at once simpler and, at the same time, infinitely more complex than it at first appears. An exquisitely constructed, mercurial gem from the Nobel prizewinner.’
— Kirkus, starred review

‘[A] mesmerizing showcase of Tokarczuk’s skills at blending a scrupulous attentiveness to the most humdrum detail of village life in rural Poland with startling forays into the realms of the uncanny…. In what Tokarczuk herself has called a “constellation-novel”, she has brought together her own galaxy of compelling case histories and the result is unfailingly revealing. Her trusted intermediary, Antonia Lloyd-Jones, is the best accomplice Tokarczuk could have wished for in another triumph of the translator’s art.’
— Michael Cronin, Irish Times

‘A writer on the level of W. G. Sebald.’
— Annie Proulx, author of The Shipping News

‘Olga Tokarczuk is inspired by maps and a perspective from above, which tends to make her microcosmos a mirror of macrocosmos. She constructs her novels in a tension between cultural opposites: nature versus culture, reason versus madness, male versus female, home versus alienation.’
— Nobel Committee for Literature