In this award-winning collection, the world is "skewed just enough... to make us see our own world more clearly.... brilliant, provocative and delightful." (TheNew York Times Book Review).Jim Crace's internationally acclaimed first book explores the tribes and communities, conflicts and superstitions, flora and fauna of a wholly spellbinding place: an imaginary seventh continent. In these seven short stories, Crace travels a strange and wonderful landscape: "Talking Skull" takes the reader to a tiny agricultural village renowned for the sexually-charged, mystical milk of its calves; "Electricity" introduces a remote flatland region where a monumental ceiling fan changes an entire town's attitude toward modernization. From the acacia scrub of the flatlands to a city bazaar jammed with vegetable stalls, tourists, and beggars, Crace's invented world is as fabulous as it is eerily familiar."Crace has invented epigraphs, cities, landscapes, even an entire landmass. The idea, of course, is the first faith of fiction: What matters most is what we hold in our minds." -Los Angeles Times"Hard and actual in observation, clearly and richly imagined, remarkably original." -The Guardian"This is stunningly powerful, visionary writing." -Publishers Weekly
