Flights has echoes of WG Sebald, Milan Kundera, Danilo Kis and Dubravka Ugresic, but Tokarczuk inhabits a rebellious, playful register very much her own. 'Olga Tokarczuk is a household name in Poland and one of Europe's major humanist writers, working here in the continental tradition of 'thinking' or essayistic novel. 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title. With her signature grace and insight, Olga Tokarczuk guides the reader beyond the surface layer of modernity and towards the core of the very nature of humankind. In the present we have the trials of a wife accompanying her much older husband as he teaches a course on a cruise ship in the Greek islands, and the harrowing story of a young husband whose wife and child mysteriously vanish on a holiday on a Croatian island.

In the nineteenth century, we follow Chopin's heart as it makes the covert journey from Paris to Warsaw. From the eighteenth century, we have the story of a North African-born slave turned Austrian courtier stuffed and put on display after his death. From the seventeenth century, we have the story of the Dutch anatomist Philip Verheyen, who dissected and drew pictures of his own amputated leg. It interweaves travel narratives and reflections on travel with an in-depth exploration of the human body, broaching life, death, motion, and migration. SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE 2018įlights, a novel about travel in the twenty-first century and human anatomy, is Olga Tokarczuk's most ambitious to date.

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