A dazzlingly original, moving and thought-provoking novel about one woman's struggle to survive throughout a century of Korean history

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 WILBUR SMITH ADVENTURE WRITING PRIZE

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 WILLIAM SAROYAN INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR WRITING

'Captivating' New York Times

'Dazzling' Financial Times

'Heartbreaking' Monica

Ali SLAVE. ESCAPE-ARTIST. MURDERER. TERRORIST. SPY. LOVER. MOTHER. TRICKSTER.

At the Golden Sunset retirement home, it is not unusual for residents to invent stories. So when elderly Ms Mook first begins to unspool her memories, the obituarist listening to her is sceptical. Stories of captivity, friendship, murder, assumed identities and spying. A life that moves from WWII Indonesia to Busan during the Korean war; from cold-war Pyongyang to a Protestant church in China. The adventures are so colourful and various, at times so unbelievable. Surely they can't all belong to the same woman. Can they?

8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2024, announced on 5th March 2024.