The Ministry of Time

The romantic, sci-fi, comedic, literary, genre-defying bestseller

'The hit of the year'
Guardian

'Addictive'
Independent

'Crack this book open and you'll see how time can disappear'
Financial Times

'Readers, I envy you: There's a smart, witty novel in your future'
Washington Post

A civil servant is offered a lucrative job in a mysterious new government ministry gathering 'expats' from across history to test whether time-travel is feasible.

Her role is to work as a 'bridge': living with, supporting and monitoring expat '1847' - Commander Graham Gore, a former Victorian polar explorer. Gore, an adventurer by trade, soon adjusts to this bizarre new world of washing machines, feminism and Spotify; and during a long, sultry summer the pair move from awkwardness to friendship to something more.

But as the true shape of the project that brought them together begins to emerge, Gore and the bridge are forced to confront their past choices and imagined futures. Can love triumph over the histories that have shaped them? And how do you defy that history when it is living in your house?

A Barack Obama reading pick

Shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize
Shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction
Shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award
Shortlisted for the Climate Fiction Prize
Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction
Longlisted for the Jhalak Prize
Longlisted for a British Book Award

One of the 18 best novels of the year for the Sunday Times
A book of the year for the New York Times, Guardian, Independent, Evening Standard, Spectator, Red, NPR, Vanity Fair, People, Slate, Advocate, Sydney Morning Herald, Globe and Mail, Den of Geek, Good Housekeeping, Goodreads, NetGalley and Smithsonian Magazine

*** This book has been printed with four different colour cover designs, available for limited time only. Colours will be assigned at random when your order is despatched. ***


Genre: Science Fiction

"The Ministry of Time is a feast of a novel - singular, alarming and (above all) incredibly sexy. An astonishingly assured debut, offering weird and unexpected delights on every page. I will be running towards whatever Kaliane Bradley writes next." - Julia Armfield

"An outrageously brilliant debut. . . This is already the best new book I will have read next year." - Eleanor Catton

"What a stunning and remarkable wonder! What if time travel was run by a bureaucracy? . . . There's something here for everyone - world history, side-splitting humour, lusty tension, brilliant prose, and characters to root for desperately. . . The Ministry of Time is the most vibe-forward book I have ever read." - Vanessa Chan

"A fantastic debut: conceptually brilliant, really funny, genuinely moving, written in the most exquisite language and with a wonderful articulation of the knotty complexities of a mixed-race heritage." - Mark Haddon

"The Ministry of Time is as electric, charming, whimsical, and strange as its ripped-from-history cast. (Extremely.) I loved every second I spent wrapped up in Kaliane Bradley's stunning prose, the moments that made me laugh and those that made my heart ache. This is a book that surprises as much as it delights, and I'm already impatiently waiting for whatever Bradley concocts next." - Emily Henry

"I haven't enjoyed a book this much for a very long time. It's wonderful, joyful, intelligent and hilarious. I underlined as I read and felt a strong sadness at finishing because I could not read it again for the first time." - Daisy Johnson

"Fantastically fun and unmistakably urgent, The Ministry of Time is an ecstatic celebration of fiction in all its vehement, ungovernable, mutinous glory." - Megha Majumdar

"Holy smokes, this novel is an absolute cut above! Kaliane Bradley leaps into a storytelling league of her own. This book is deadly serious speculative fiction, but it is also one of the funniest books I've read in years. It's exciting, surprising, intellectually provocative, weird, radical, tender, and moving. I missed it when I was away from it. I will hurry to re-read it. Make room on your bookshelves for a new classic." - Max Porter

"Hugely enjoyable: ingeniously constructed, beautifully written, and unexpectedly sexy. It is the rarest of creations: a boldly entertaining page-tuner that is also deeply, thoughtfully engaged with our past, present and future." - Joanna Quinn

"Sly and illusionless in its use of history, lovely in its sentences, warm - no, hotter than that - in its characterisation, devastating in its denouement. A weird, kind, clever, heartsick little time bomb of a book." - Francis Spufford

"Kaliane Bradley writes with the maximalist confidence of P. G. Wodehouse, but also with the page-turning pining of Sally Rooney. It's thought-provoking and horribly clever - but it also made me laugh out loud." - Alice Winn