The Cockroach cover art

The Cockroach

 Preview
Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Cockroach

By: Ian McEwan
Narrated by: Bill Nighy
Try Standard free

Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $12.99

Buy Now for $12.99

About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Kafka meets The Thick Of It in a bitingly funny new political satire from Ian McEwan

That morning, Jim Sams, clever but by no means profound, woke from uneasy dreams to find himself transformed into a gigantic creature.

Jim Sams has undergone a metamorphosis. In his previous life he was ignored or loathed, but in his new incarnation he is the most powerful man in Britain – and it is his mission to carry out the will of the people. Nothing must get in his way: not the opposition, nor the dissenters within his own party. Not even the rules of parliamentary democracy.

With trademark intelligence, insight and scabrous humour, Ian McEwan pays tribute to Franz Kafka’s most famous work to engage with a world turned on its head.

 Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Political Satire Comedy Witty

Critic Reviews

A comic triumph… How do you make a show of people who are doing such a fabulous job of making a show of themselves? McEwan manages to do so with great style and comic panache. (Fintan O'Toole)
The Cockroach is a satirical novella for our times, sharply observed and often very funny… an entertaining read, confronting the reality of Britain today.
The latest instalment in his [McEwan’s] imaginative scrambling of English social history and of reality… [McEwan] finds room, amid all the Hansard send-ups and diplomatic silliness, to allude to more troubling physical-philosophical quandaries, while positing an alternative history of economic thought that culminates in a wayward version of our present. (Leo Robson)
Brexit has such a camp, knowing, performative quality that it is almost impossible to inflate it any further… McEwan manages to do so with great style and comic panache… very funny… McEwan’s comic parable at least provides some relief from a political farce that has long gone beyond a joke. (Fintan O'Toole)
A well-constructed novella by a master of the art. (Stephen Bush)
The satire is impeccably managed. Cleverly rendered, yet imprecise parallels ensure there is sufficient distance for the humour to be effective… it is comic relief in the darkest sense. (Cora MacGregor)
Like McEwan's other work, The Cockroach is a beautifully written novella and an in-depth critique of Britain's current political situation… I found this an exciting and inventive retelling of Kafka's classic tale, and a clever commentary on not just Brexit, but modern British politics as a whole. (Meg Horridge)
All stars
Most relevant
I love his writing and enjoyed this book. Probably not good value for money as it is very short. A really fantastic performance

It’s quite short!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
McEwan’s political allegory is the Animal Farm for our generation. An astute warning to human kind. What happens when capitalism and consumerism are uncoupled from that which sustains them? Bill Nighy is superb as the narrator.

A devilishly dark allegory

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.