2024 Goldsmiths Prize (nominee)
'A brilliant, bleak moral maze of a novel' Guardian
'Dazzling... by turns comic, lyrical and heartbreaking' Monica Ali
'Profound and beautiful' Paul Murray, author of The Bee Sting
'A vital, haunting, devastating read' Sarah Waters
A publisher, who is at war with his industry and himself, embarks on a radical experiment in his own life and the lives of those connected to him; an academic exchanges one story for another after an accident brings a stranger into her life; and a family in rural India have their lives destroyed by a gift.
These three ingeniously linked but distinct narratives, each of which has devastating unintended consequences, form a breathtaking exploration of freedom, responsibility, and ethics. What happens when market values replace other notions of value and meaning? How do the choices we make affect our work, our relationships, and our place in the world? Neel Mukherjee's new novel exposes the myths of individual choice, and confronts our fundamental assumptions about economics, race, appropriation, and the tangled ethics of contemporary life.
Choice is a scathing, compassionate quarrel with the world, a masterful inquiry into how we should live our lives, and how we should tell them.
'A magnificent achievement' Namwali Serpell
'A superb writer... his greatest work yet' Michelle de Kretser
Genre: Literary Fiction
'Dazzling... by turns comic, lyrical and heartbreaking' Monica Ali
'Profound and beautiful' Paul Murray, author of The Bee Sting
'A vital, haunting, devastating read' Sarah Waters
A publisher, who is at war with his industry and himself, embarks on a radical experiment in his own life and the lives of those connected to him; an academic exchanges one story for another after an accident brings a stranger into her life; and a family in rural India have their lives destroyed by a gift.
These three ingeniously linked but distinct narratives, each of which has devastating unintended consequences, form a breathtaking exploration of freedom, responsibility, and ethics. What happens when market values replace other notions of value and meaning? How do the choices we make affect our work, our relationships, and our place in the world? Neel Mukherjee's new novel exposes the myths of individual choice, and confronts our fundamental assumptions about economics, race, appropriation, and the tangled ethics of contemporary life.
Choice is a scathing, compassionate quarrel with the world, a masterful inquiry into how we should live our lives, and how we should tell them.
'A magnificent achievement' Namwali Serpell
'A superb writer... his greatest work yet' Michelle de Kretser
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Choice burns brightly with fierce intelligence, with wisdom and compassion, and achieves what so few novels even attempt: it makes the reader think deeply about how we've come to live this way, at what cost, and about those who pay the greatest price." - Monica Ali
"This book speaks to our present moment with such intelligence as to move it from the merely brilliant to the vitally important. Kaleidoscopic yet intimate, philosophical yet affecting, Choice is a stunning, haunting accomplishment." - Karen Joy Fowler
"Choice is perhaps the most brilliant novel I've read this year. It is the reminder of why we need fiction. Profound and devastating, Choice is as dark and hauntingly beautiful as it gets. A masterpiece of the highest order." - A M Homes
"Here is a magnificently clear-eyed portrait of our times lit equally by sorrow and rage. Neel Mukherjee is a superb writer, and Choice is his greatest work yet." - Michelle de Kretser
"A searing indictment of neoliberal folly, a profound and beautiful meditation on compassion, Choice is exactly the kind of novel we need now-the kind that nobody but Neel Mukherjee can write." - Paul Murray
"A magnificent accomplishment. In each panel of this masterful triptych-or each movement of this classical sonata-exquisite prose gradually crescendos to jaw-dropping revelations... Choice is a deeply human novel, and a humane one... We come to realize, to feel through experiencing the successive waves of the novel's movements, that a human life is not simply the result of rational choices but rather, as Neel Mukherjee puts it, the lull between them-a rich and swaying lull, thick with love and responsibility." - Namwali Serpell
"Choice is Neel Mukherjee's best book yet: a brooding meditation on the complexities of agency and duty, freedom and guilt, in a savagely unequal world. It's a vital, haunting, devastating read." - Sarah Waters
"Neel Mukherjee is a great novelist... He knows how to clothe ethical conflicts with sweeping narrative and convincing detail. The range of his knowledge-from London intellectual and professional life today to the precarious hardships of the 'ultra-poor' in Bengal-is shockingly deep. He is a writer of genius." - Edmund White
"Neel Mukherjee's keen eyes, formidable intelligence, masterful scalpel, and compassionate approach offer us reassurance and hope without any illusion." - Yiyun Li
"This book speaks to our present moment with such intelligence as to move it from the merely brilliant to the vitally important. Kaleidoscopic yet intimate, philosophical yet affecting, Choice is a stunning, haunting accomplishment." - Karen Joy Fowler
"Choice is perhaps the most brilliant novel I've read this year. It is the reminder of why we need fiction. Profound and devastating, Choice is as dark and hauntingly beautiful as it gets. A masterpiece of the highest order." - A M Homes
"Here is a magnificently clear-eyed portrait of our times lit equally by sorrow and rage. Neel Mukherjee is a superb writer, and Choice is his greatest work yet." - Michelle de Kretser
"A searing indictment of neoliberal folly, a profound and beautiful meditation on compassion, Choice is exactly the kind of novel we need now-the kind that nobody but Neel Mukherjee can write." - Paul Murray
"A magnificent accomplishment. In each panel of this masterful triptych-or each movement of this classical sonata-exquisite prose gradually crescendos to jaw-dropping revelations... Choice is a deeply human novel, and a humane one... We come to realize, to feel through experiencing the successive waves of the novel's movements, that a human life is not simply the result of rational choices but rather, as Neel Mukherjee puts it, the lull between them-a rich and swaying lull, thick with love and responsibility." - Namwali Serpell
"Choice is Neel Mukherjee's best book yet: a brooding meditation on the complexities of agency and duty, freedom and guilt, in a savagely unequal world. It's a vital, haunting, devastating read." - Sarah Waters
"Neel Mukherjee is a great novelist... He knows how to clothe ethical conflicts with sweeping narrative and convincing detail. The range of his knowledge-from London intellectual and professional life today to the precarious hardships of the 'ultra-poor' in Bengal-is shockingly deep. He is a writer of genius." - Edmund White
"Neel Mukherjee's keen eyes, formidable intelligence, masterful scalpel, and compassionate approach offer us reassurance and hope without any illusion." - Yiyun Li
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