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A down to earth and surreal fable from one of Britain´s most original and best-loved comic novelists

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE 2016
´One of Britain´s most original, inimitable writers´ The Times

´The field looks completely wrong now,´ she announced, one blustery afternoon. ´It´s all gone out of balance´

The Great Field lies in the bend of a broad, meandering river. Bounded on three sides by water, on the fourth side it dwindles gradually into wilderness. A handful of tents are scattered far and wide across its immensity. Their flags flutter in the warm breeze, rich with the promise of halcyon days.

But more and more people are setting up camp in the lush pastures and with each new arrival life becomes a little more complicated. And when a large and disciplined group arrive from across the river emotions run so high that even a surplus of milk pudding can´t soothe ruffled feathers. Change is coming; change that threatens the delicate balance of power in the Great Field.

This simultaneously down to earth and surreal fable cements Magnus Mills´ status as one of Britain´s most original novelists.

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Another mythic, mercurial world, a utopia that increasingly reveals its own fragility . Fans will revel in his bone-dry comic prose, a narrative voice that is both casual and knowing. In one patch of grass, Mills triumphantly displays his own idiosyncrasies and peculiarities; as literary experiments go, it´s a memorable one Literary Review

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Magnus Mills is the author of The Field of the Cloth of Gold and eight other novels, including The Restraint of Beasts, which won the McKitterick Prize and was shortlisted for both the Booker Prize and the Whitbread (now the Costa) First Novel Award in 1999. His most recent novel, The Field of the Cloth of Gold was published to great critical acclaim and was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize 2015. His books have been translated into twenty languages. He lives in London.

Magnus Mills is the author of A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked In and six other novels, including The Restraint of Beasts, which won the McKitterick Prize and was shortlisted for both the Booker Prize and the Whitbread (now the Costa) First Novel Award in 1999. His most recent novel, A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked In, was published to great critical acclaim. His books have been translated into twenty languages. He lives in London.

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