Cloud Atlas

Synopsis

In a bold and unconventionally structured work, David Mitchell combines the stories of six individuals.

The morality and ambitions of a reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan’s California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified ‘dinery server’ on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation echo and impact on each others stories and point to a terrifying vision of the world’s future and challenges our ability to shape not only our destiny but those that will come after us.

Author Biography

David Mitchell was born in Southport in January, 1969. His first novel, Ghostwritten (1999), won the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for the best book by a writer under 35 and was also shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. His second novel, number9dream, was shortlisted for the 2001 Booker Prize as well as the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. His third novel Cloud Atlas was shortlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize. In 2003 he was selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. David Mitchell now lives in Ireland.