Possess

«Possess» — a legendary Booker Prize-winning novel, one of the most important works of British literature from the late 20th century. In new design! The best gift for all connoisseurs of quality prose.

«Possess» — the best novel by Antonia Susan Byatt, and this is no exaggeration: the book is considered one of the best English novels of the late 20th century. However, the word «novel» can be applied to this astonishing prose quite loosely. What is it before us? A detective novel of ideas? A women's gothic novel in modern execution? A chivalric novel with a new twist? All together — and something more: a deeply modern piece, imbued with many traditions and marked by the stamp of genuine inspiration and innovation.

In the novel, the mystery of the English spirit and English greatness shimmers in different facets. But above all, it is a book about living people (even if some of them have long since died), the images of whom haunt the reader; about love and passion that conquer time and death; about the aspirations of spirit and flesh, earthly and lofty, explicit and hidden; and about the divine Plan that glimpses through the tragic and comic patterns of human fate.

Through the mirror-like labyrinth of the plot, the characters of this whimsical narrative navigate into a mysterious past: the inhabitants of the age of men — into the age of heroes, and the inhabitants of the age of heroes — into the age of gods. Two elements reign on these pages — the element of reason, brilliance of thought, almost sensual, and the element of subtle eroticism, born from the contact of the rough material of life with the tender fabrics of imagination.

«Possess» occupies a unique place in the history of modern literature and, despite its deep national distinctiveness, belongs to the whole world. Now, several decades after the release of Byatt's masterpiece, the Booker Prize of 1990 awarded to the novel seems insufficient. As perhaps is the Order of the British Empire, given to the author a little later.