The Incarnations

Mesmerizing, fantastical tale of a Beijing taxi driver whose past incarnations over a thousand years haunt him through searing letters sent by a mysterious soulmate

A New York Times Editors' Choice and Notable Book of the Year.
Shortlisted for the Kirkus Prize for Fiction

'Reads as China's Midnight's Children. Utterly remarkable' Independent
'A kaleidoscopically imaginative novel' The New Yorker
'Multi-layered and masterful' Guardian

I dream of us across the centuries ...

Beijing, 2008, the Olympics are coming, but as taxi driver Wang circles the city's congested streets, he feels barely alive. His daily grind is suddenly interrupted when he finds a letter in the sunshade of his cab. He is being warned: Someone is watching him. Someone who claims to be his soulmate and to have known him for over a thousand years.

Other letters follow, taking Wang back in time: to a spirit-bride in the Tang Dynasty; to young slaves during the Mongol invasion; to concubines plotting to kill the emperor; to a kidnapping in the Opium War; and to Red Guards during the Cultural revolution.

And with each letter, Wang feels the watcher in the shadows growing closer ...
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PRAISE FOR Susan Barker:

'[A] kaleidoscopically imaginative novel...Barker stitches together an unnervingly perceptive portrait of China and of the enduring influence that its past has on the present' THE NEW YORKER

'A thrilling journey through a thousand years of obsession and betrayal, this is the most extraordinary work of imagination you'll read all year' ADAM JOHNSON, Winner of the PULITZER Prize for Fiction

'Erudite, intriguing and compulsively readable, Susan Barker, a born story-teller, has written one of the most remarkable novels of recent years' JOHN BOYNE

'A brilliant, mind-expanding, and wildly original novel' CHRIS CLEAVE

'A hallucinatory ride. Highly recommend' ANNA HOPE