Awards

• Winner of The Miles Franklin Award 2018 (UK)

Overview

Winner of the Miles Franklin Award, 2018 Longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award, 2018 New Statesman's best books of the year, 2018 Michelle de Kretser's fifth novel is both a delicious satire on the way we live now and a deeply moving examination of the true nature of friendship. Pippa is a writer who longs for success. Céleste tries to convince herself that her feelings for her married lover are reciprocated. Ash makes strategic use of his childhood in Sri Lanka but blots out the memory of a tragedy from that time. Driven by riveting stories and unforgettable characters, here is a dazzling meditation on intimacy, loneliness and our flawed perception of other people. Profoundly moving as well as bitingly funny, The Life to Come reveals how the shadows cast by both the past and the future can transform, distort and undo the present. Travelling from Sydney to Paris and Sri Lanka, this mesmerising novel feels at once firmly classic and exhilaratingly contemporary.

Full Product Details

9781760296704

Table of Contents

Reviews

A remarkable achievement...wise and abrasive, witty and poignant. * The Saturday Paper * Superb, ambitious and deeply moving * The Australian * Her powers of description and evocation are remarkable...Michelle de Kretser has written a comic lament of disarming force. * Sydney Morning Herald *

Novel by novel, the Sri Lankan-born Australian has emerged as one of the most fiercely intelligent voices in fiction today. -- Boyd Tonkin * Independent * A remarkable achievement...wise and abrasive, witty and poignant. * The Saturday Paper * Superb, ambitious and deeply moving * The Australian *

Is it possible we already have the year's best novel? I'll be amazed if anything surpasses this compulsive, exquisitely light-footed narrative...glorious. * Daily Mail * De Kretser's satirical observations - on the literati, self-congratulation, suburban pretension - are so subtly deboning they remind me of Jane Austen's...The Life to Come deserves all the gongs we can bang for it. * The Spectator * Exhilaratingly good writing...each page yields sparkling sentences and keen observations. * Literary Review * [de Kretser's] writing captures, with unflagging wit, grace and subtlety, the spiritual as well as physical journeys of people on the move - between cultures, mindsets and stages of growth. -- Boyd Tonkin * Financial Times * Funny and satirical, this is a biting look at the way we present ourselves and the way we are seen by others. * Stylist * As always, Michelle de Kretser offers a wide compassionate view...Above all, there is the pleasure of her writing. * Times Literary Supplement * Very few novels see through our times with such vision and perspicacity, such wit and compassion, and yet this profound book is the farthest thing imaginable from that journalistic demand made of literature, that it should make sense of our times . It does, but not in any ways that you'd imagine. -- Neel Mukherjee * New Statesman * Superb, ambitious and deeply moving * The Australian * For a novel concerned with dislocation, there's a lot of grounding humour ...de Kretser's observations are so spot on, you'll forgive her even as you cringe. * New York Times * A remarkable achievement...wise and abrasive, witty and poignant. * The Saturday Paper * Her powers of description and evocation are remarkable...Michelle de Kretser has written a comic lament of disarming force. * Sydney Morning Herald * My book of the year is Michelle de Kretser's The Life to Come, a sharp and unsettling novel - narcissism of all kinds is skewered here - that is deeply pleasurable to read. * Ceridwen Dovey, The Australian * A joyful and mournful meditation on the endless small pleasures and complications of life...sure-footed and often surprising. * Publishers Weekly *

Exhilaratingly good writing...each page yields sparkling sentences and keen observations. * Literary Review * A remarkable achievement...wise and abrasive, witty and poignant. * The Saturday Paper * Superb, ambitious and deeply moving * The Australian * Her powers of description and evocation are remarkable...Michelle de Kretser has written a comic lament of disarming force. * Sydney Morning Herald *

Novel by novel, the Sri Lankan-born Australian has emerged as one of the most fiercely intelligent voices in fiction today. -- Boyd Tonkin * Independent *

A joyful and mournful meditation on the endless small pleasures and complications of life...sure-footed and often surprising. * Publishers Weekly * My book of the year is Michelle de Kretser's The Life to Come, a sharp and unsettling novel - narcissism of all kinds is skewered here - that is deeply pleasurable to read. * Ceridwen Dovey, The Australian * Her powers of description and evocation are remarkable...Michelle de Kretser has written a comic lament of disarming force. * Sydney Morning Herald * A remarkable achievement...wise and abrasive, witty and poignant. * The Saturday Paper * Superb, ambitious and deeply moving * The Australian * For a novel concerned with dislocation, there's a lot of grounding humour ...de Kretser's observations are so spot on, you'll forgive her even as you cringe. * New York Times * As always, Michelle de Kretser offers a wide compassionate view...Above all, there is the pleasure of her writing. * Times Literary Supplement * Funny and satirical, this is a biting look at the way we present ourselves and the way we are seen by others. * Stylist * [de Kretser's] writing captures, with unflagging wit, grace and subtlety, the spiritual as well as physical journeys of people on the move - between cultures, mindsets and stages of growth. -- Boyd Tonkin * Financial Times * Exhilaratingly good writing...each page yields sparkling sentences and keen observations. * Literary Review * De Kretser's satirical observations - on the literati, self-congratulation, suburban pretension - are so subtly deboning they remind me of Jane Austen's...The Life to Come deserves all the gongs we can bang for it. * The Spectator * Is it possible we already have the year's best novel? I'll be amazed if anything surpasses this compulsive, exquisitely light-footed narrative...glorious. * Daily Mail *

Is it possible we already have the year's best novel? I'll be amazed if anything surpasses this compulsive, exquisitely light-footed narrative...glorious. * Daily Mail * De Kretser's satirical observations - on the literati, self-congratulation, suburban pretension - are so subtly deboning they remind me of Jane Austen's...The Life to Come deserves all the gongs we can bang for it. * The Spectator * Exhilaratingly good writing...each page yields sparkling sentences and keen observations. * Literary Review * [de Kretser's] writing captures, with unflagging wit, grace and subtlety, the spiritual as well as physical journeys of people on the move - between cultures, mindsets and stages of growth. -- Boyd Tonkin * Financial Times * Funny and satirical, this is a biting look at the way we present ourselves and the way we are seen by others. * Stylist * As always, Michelle de Kretser offers a wide compassionate view...Above all, there is the pleasure of her writing. * Times Literary Supplement * For a novel concerned with dislocation, there's a lot of grounding humour ...de Kretser's observations are so spot on, you'll forgive her even as you cringe. * New York Times * Superb, ambitious and deeply moving * The Australian * A remarkable achievement...wise and abrasive, witty and poignant. * The Saturday Paper * Her powers of description and evocation are remarkable...Michelle de Kretser has written a comic lament of disarming force. * Sydney Morning Herald * My book of the year is Michelle de Kretser's The Life to Come, a sharp and unsettling novel - narcissism of all kinds is skewered here - that is deeply pleasurable to read. * Ceridwen Dovey, The Australian * A joyful and mournful meditation on the endless small pleasures and complications of life...sure-footed and often surprising. * Publishers Weekly *

Author Information

Michelle de Kretser was born in Sri Lanka and emigrated to Australia when she was 14. She was educated in Melbourne and Paris. She is the author of four other novels: The Rose Grower, The Hamilton Case, The Lost Dog, which was longlisted for both the Man Booker and the Orange Prize, and Questions of Travel, which won several prizes including the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Prime Minister's Literary Award. She lives in Sydney.

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