Review
Dazzling ... [Spufford is] one of the finest prose stylists of his generation. If his stories grip, his sentences practically glow. -- Robert Douglas-Fairhurst ― The Times
Powerful . heartbreaking . [a] boundlessly rich novel. -- James Walton ― Daily Telegraph
A brilliant, attention-grabbing, capacious experiment with fiction. -- Kate Kellaway ― Observer
Spufford is a tremendously varied and surprising writer ... With exceptional care [he] catches the voices and hopes of five not-dead working-class south Londoners, and the people who change and shape them. -- Alexandra Harris ― Guardian, Book of the Week
Moving and effortlessly absorbing. -- Stephanie Cross ― Daily Mail
The novel's overarching feat is to resurrect with marvellous vitality not just its central five figures, but six transformative decades of London life. -- Peter Kemp ― Sunday Times
Light Perpetual's brilliance lies in the emotion and drama it wrings from the ordinary - but profoundly meaningful - experiences of its protagonists. -- Alex Preston ― Financial Times
A glorious act of literary resurrection. -- Claire Allfree ― Evening Standard
This novel simply excels in the stop-time rapture of noticing. -- Boyd Tonkin ― The Arts Desk
A tender, endlessly inventive novel. ― Waterstones, Best Fiction Books to Look Forward to in 2021
Dazzling . Intimate, absorbing. -- Alice O'Keeffe ― The Bookseller
Radiant with hope and grace and courage . . . I loved it. -- Sarah Perry
An extraordinary novel . . . [Spufford is] such a beautiful writer, casually stunning in his language and perceptions . . . So engrossing . . . Light Perpetual is a miracle, not only of art but of encompossing empathy -- it becomes not only about the terribly brief lives of these fictional children, but of the finitude that bounds all the living and the dead. -- Maureen Corrigan ― Wall Street Journal
A vivid and moving tour through 20th-century Britain. -- Laura Battle ― FT, Summer Books
Product Description
**Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2021**
**Winner of the RSL Encore Award**
** From the author of Golden Hill **
'My god he can write.' Richard Osman
'Glorious.' Evening Standard
'Exhilarating.' TLS
'Brilliant.' Observer
'Dazzling.' The Times
'Extraordinary.' Financial Times
'Superb.' Guardian
November 1944. A German rocket strikes London and five young children are atomised in an instant.
Here are the futures they might have known, had they experienced the unimaginable changes of the twentieth century - futures that illuminate the miraculous in the everyday, and the preciousness of life itself.
Book Description
From the best-selling, prize-winning author of Golden Hill, a novel of the everyday, the miraculous and the everlasting.
From the Back Cover
November 1944. A German rocket strikes London, and five young lives are atomised in an instant. November 1944. That rocket never lands. A single second in time is altered, and five young lives go on - to experience all the unimaginable changes of the twentieth century. Because maybe there are always other futures. Other chances. Light Perpetual is a story of the everyday, the miraculous and the everlasting. Ingenious and profound, full of warmth and beauty, it is a sweeping and intimate celebration of the gift of life.
About the Author
Francis Spufford was born in 1964. He is the author of five celebrated books of non-fiction. The most recent, Unapologetic, has been translated into three languages; the one before, Red Plenty, into nine. He has been longlisted or shortlisted for prizes in science writing, historical writing, political writing, theological writing, and writing 'evoking the spirit of place'. His first novel. Golden Hill, was published in 2016 and won the Costa First Novel Award. In 2007 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He teaches creative writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and lives near Cambridge., Francis Spufford, a former Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year (
