Kaliane Bradley for The Ministry of Time
Monday 18th November
Topping & Company Booksellers of Edinburgh, 2 Blenheim Place, Edinburgh EH7 5JH
7pm
7.30pm
Please note, this is taking place in the bookshop.
A BOY MEETS A GIRL. THE PAST MEETS THE FUTURE. A FINGER MEETS A TRIGGER. THE BEGINNING MEETS THE END. ENGLAND IS FOREVER. ENGLAND MUST FALL.
Join us for an event for Kaliane Bradley, author of the book of the moment The Ministry of Time.
Kaliane Bradley is a British-Cambodian writer and editor. She was the winner of the 2022 Harper's Bazaar Short Story Prize and the 2022 V. S. Pritchett Short Story Prize. The Ministry of Time is her first novel - and it became an instant Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller.
'A thrilling debut . . . It's very smart; it's very silly; and the obvious fun never obscures completely the sheer, gorgeous, wild stretch of her ideas' ~ Guardian
'Fast moving and riotously entertaining, a genre-busting blend of wit and wonder' ~ OBSERVER, 10 best new novelists for 2024
'Terrific, moving . . . Crack this book open and you'll see how time can disappear' ~ FINANCIAL TIMES
In the near future, a disaffected civil servant is offered a lucrative job in a mysterious new government ministry gathering 'expats' from across history to test the limits of time-travel.
Her role is to work as a 'bridge': living with, assisting and monitoring the expat known as '1847' - Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin's doomed expedition to the Arctic, so he's a little disoriented to find himself alive and surrounded by outlandish concepts such as 'washing machine', 'Spotify' and 'the collapse of the British Empire'. With an appetite for discovery and a seven-a-day cigarette habit, he soon adjusts; and during a long, sultry summer he and his bridge move from awkwardness to genuine friendship, to something more.
But as the true shape of the project that brought them together begins to emerge, Gore and the bridge are forced to confront their past choices and imagined futures. Can love triumph over the structures and histories that have shaped them? And how do you defy history when history is living in your house?