Primeval and Other Times

This is a new book. Condition: Brand New.

From one the world's greatest living writers, recently featured on Dua Lipa's book club, a fable-like novel charting Poland's turbulent twentieth century through the life of a mythical village.

The Nobel Prize winner at her earthiest and most ethereal, in a fictional journey through three generations in the life of a mythical Polish village.

For the denizens of Primeval, the world beyond its fields and forests is but a dream. The outcast Cornspike raises her daughter among the creatures and spirits of the forest. The squire Popielski loses his faith and becomes obsessed with a game where progress is attained only by dreaming the right kind of dream. Nonhuman beings-trees and mushrooms and archangels-have their stories, or Times, too, as do inanimate objects, which may be 'more important for the world than people.' Yet their Times are buffeted by the feral history of the twentieth century, after war carries Michal the miller away from his family in 1914. Bloodshed, betrayal, and the dramas of daily life mark the birth, life, and decline of Primeval's little world and Times, making us consider afresh the stories by which we comprehend our own.

Rich with the capaciousness and imagination that have brought Tokarczuk to sustained international fame, Primeval and Other Times is yet another treasure for fans and new converts alike.

'A rich and eventful capsule of life...Tokarczuk's writing is studded with lyricism.' Age

'This is another stunning work of literature. At the heart it lies the question, articulated by one of the townsfolk after the atrocities of World War II, "What sort of a God created a world like this?"' Maria Takolander, The Saturday Paper

'As brilliant and life-affirming as literature gets.' Saturday Paper on Flights

Book details and technical specifications

Format: Paperback / softback
ISBN13: 9781923670082
Published: September 2026

Number of pages: 240
Width: 153 mm
Height: 232 mm
Depth: 22 mm

Publisher: Text Publishing