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Published by Granta earlier this autumn, Ben Pester’s debut novel is the story of Tom Crowley - a Willy Loman figure for our age - who is slowly and terrifyingly absorbed into the hallucinatory and labyrinthine surroundings of his work. From the deceptive nature of Luke Bird’s day-glow cover art to the impenetrability of the novel’s work-speak The Expansion Project is deeply unnerving precisely for its recognisable qualities. The alienation, accountability and obsolesce of corporation life at the ever growing 'Capmeadow Business Park,’ a dystopic setting that absorbs memory and demands disassociation.

‘A profoundly moving, extraordinary novel … Witty, touching, layered and entirely original’

Rose Ruane

‘A surrealist nightmare that flows with its own logic, humour, politics and plot energy’

Ross Raisin

‘This is a luminous and startling novel from a unique new voice.’

Samuel Fisher

GET YOUR COPY HERE

https://granta.com/products/the-expansion-project/

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Next February, Canongate will publish Nation of Strangers, the third instalment in a series by Turkish novelist, essayist and journalist Ece Temelkuran. Ahead of its publication we met to discuss the two books that precede it, ‘How To Lose A Country’ and ‘Together - A Manifesto Against A Heartless World.’ Both deal with what Ece has termed ‘cloud fascism’ - the gradual then sudden everywhereness and nowhereness of global autocracy.

Rooted in her own experience of the Erdogan regime’s corruption and unrelenting assault on human rights, both books detail the dark drift toward fascism and the determination and dignity needed in resistance. In this wide ranging conversation, the first of two interviews, we discuss the normalisation of shamelessness, the dangers of pseudo-understanding, the fight for institutions and the essential value of stories, something Ece describes as ‘natural penicillin for diseases of the soul. ‘

Ece Temelkuran is an award-winning Turkish novelist, political thinker and public speaker whose work has appeared in the Guardian, New York Times, Le Monde, La Stampa, El Pais, New Statesman and Der Spiegel. Her novels have been published in several languages and adapted for the stage.

‘One of the most acute and perceptive analysts of the furtive growth of fascism. Everyone should know about this.’

PHILIP PULLMAN

‘This is essential.’

MARGARET ATWOOD

‘Temelkuran is a brilliant writer, finding humour, hope and humanity in the darkest corners of our current malaise. Together lifted my heart and my spirits.’

BRIAN ENO

‘A potent mix of fierce urgency but unyielding calmness.’

THE IRISH TIMES

Music used on this episode is Room 2 by 36

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On this episode we meet Clare Carlisle to discuss Transcendence for Beginners, (Fitzcarraldo Editions). A book written through love and mourning, it is, as the title suggests, explorative, unbound and deeply moving.

Ranging widely, from Soren Kierkegaard to George Eliot, The Himalayas to The Isle of Skye, it is a book that offers us devotion and loss as expressions of love. A timely and generative reminder of our own porous and momentary selves and quite simply, a very beautiful book.

‘A work of thrilling lucidity and substance,’

Clare Harman, author of All Sorts of Lives

‘This is the book of a lifetime’s and a book about lifetimes.’

Francesca Wade, author of Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife

'In an era marked by rampant cruelty and selfishness, Transcendence for Beginners offers its readers various modes of the radiant life.’

Siri Hustvedt, author of Mothers, Fathers and Others

Order your copy here:

https://fitzcarraldoeditions.com/books/transcendence-for-beginners/

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