Beautyland

''One of the best books I have read this year'' KALIANE BRADLEY, Guardian ''A perfect little polished garnet of a novel'' New York Times Even as a child, Adina Giorno knows that she is different. She is from a faraway planet. Born at the moment when Voyager 1 is launched into space carrying its famous golden record, Adina is a baby of unusual perception. Tiny and jaundiced, she reaches for warmth and light. She stumbles through her first years on Earth until a fax machine arrives at home, enabling her to contact her extraterrestrial relatives who have sent her to report on the oddities of Earthlings. As she moves through the world and makes a life for herself among humans, she dispatches transmissions on the terrors and surprising joys of their existence. Then, at a precarious moment, a beloved friend urges Adina to share her observations with the world. Is there a chance there are others like her out there? A Guardian and New York Times best book of the year, Beautyland introduces a gentle, unforgettable alien for our times. It is a novel of startling originality about the fragility and resilience of life in our universe. 5-STAR READER REVIEWS: ''This is a rare book where the concept and execution are both pitch perfect...I loved this'' ''A stunner. Quirky, poignant, magical, heartbreaking - I loved it'' ''Weeping, yelling, sending faxes. I loved this beautiful book so much'' ''A beautiful, gentle story, for every person who has ever felt like an alien among all the humans'' ''One of the best things I''ve ever read... What a special, special book'' ''A book that I will recommend to people for the rest of my life'' DAKOTA JOHNSON ''It''s impossible for a book to feel this fun and this urgent. Beautyland is a miracle. I''ll be rereading it forever'' KAVEH AKBAR ''Beautiful and hilarious and transcendent... Bertino is an other-worldly talent'' TOMMY ORANGE ...

Autorentext

Marie-Helene Bertino is the author of 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas, Parakeet and Beautyland. Beautyland has been named a best book of 2024 and a must-read by the New York Times, Guardian, TIME, Elle, Esquire, Goodreads, Nylon, Boston Globe, Literary Hub, San Francisco Chronicle and Chicago Review of Books. It was a finalist in the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. She has received the O. Henry Prize, the Pushcart Prize, the Iowa Short Fiction Award and the Mississippi Review Prize. She is currently the Ritvo-Slifka Writer-in-Residence at Yale University and lives in Brooklyn.

Klappentext

Meet Adina: a woman who has never felt at home on Earth

* A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR, JUST LANDED IN THE UK *

'One of the best books I have read this year' KALIANE BRADLEY, Guardian
'As tender as it is witty and perceptive' SPECTATOR
'I do not know how my life would be if I hadn't read this book' Reader review

Born at the moment when Voyager 1 is launched into space, Adina is a baby of unusual perception. Tiny and jaundiced, she reaches for warmth and light. As a child, she recognises she is different, not least because of her strange knowledge of a faraway planet. Then a fax machine arrives at home. Her mission is clear: she must report on the oddities of humankind.

As Adina grows up, she dispatches transmissions on the terrors and delights of human existence. But then she starts to wonder. Is there a chance there are others like her out there?

Adina sees our world differently. And her gentle, perceptive - and funny - observations offer a quietly joyful new view of life on Earth, the challenge of knowing ourselves and the miracle of finding our people in this vast universe.

'A remarkable funny-sad novel' New York Times
'I loved this idiosyncratic, funny and wise novel' LAILA LALAMI, author of The Dream Hotel
'Joyous and expansive and wonderfully funny' DAISY JOHNSON, author of Fen
'A book that I will recommend to people for the rest of my life' DAKOTA JOHNSON

Zusammenfassung
Bertino's weightless, joyful prose style nevertheless freights huge emotion. As much about acceptance and community as it is about yearning and divergency, it's a wonderful novel about making a life on Earth. This is one of the best books I have read this year KALIANE BRADLEY, author of The Ministry of Time