SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE 2017

Tightly wound and full of dread, Fever Dream is a chilling tale of maternal love and environmental catastrophe, from an Argentinian literary star

'The book I wish I had written' Lisa Taddeo, author of Three Women and Animal

A young woman named Amanda lies dying in a remote Argentinian hospital. A boy named David sits beside her.

She's not his mother. He's not her child.

At David's ever more insistent prompting, Amanda recounts a series of events from the apparently recent past, a conversation that opens a chest of horrors. Together, they tell a haunting story of broken souls, toxins, and the power and desperation of family.

A chilling tale of maternal anxiety and ecological menace, Fever Dream is a modern classic. Samanta Schweblin's unforgettable debut is a prescient warning about our manipulation of the natural world, and an unforgettable exercise in literary suspense.

'A gloriously creepy fable' Guardian, 'Best Fiction of 2017'

A deeply unsettling and disorientating debut novel about obsession, identity and motherhood

About the Author

Samanta Schweblin won the 2023 National Book Award for Translated Literature for her story collection, Seven Empty Houses. Her debut novel, Fever Dream, was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, and her novel Little Eyes and story collection Mouthful of Birds have been longlisted for the same prize. Her books have been translated into over forty languages, and her work has appeared in English in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine and elsewhere. Originally from Buenos Aires, Schweblin lives in Berlin.

Megan McDowell has translated books by many contemporary South American and Spanish authors, and her translations have won the National Book Award, the O. Henry Prize, the English PEN award and the Premio Valle-Inclan, and been nominated for the International Booker Prize four times. She lives in Chile.

Reviews

'A shifting, unstable fantasia inspired by fears about GM and environmental degradation' Guardian

'Read this in a single sitting and by the end I could hardly breathe. It's a total mind-wrecker. Amazing. Thrilling.' Max Porter, author of Grief is the Thing with Feathers

'A book to read in one frantic sitting - bold, uncanny and utterly gripping.' Observer, Best Fiction of 2017

'An unnerving read, straddling the realms of the supernatural and of Argentina's dark recent history.' Financial Times, Best Books of 2017

'Each layer is soaked in dread, and the dread goes so deep that it works even on the third reading.' London Review of Books

'This daring, ambiguous thriller is an apocalyptic lamentation for our world in free fall, a place in which nothing and no one, not even a child or a horse in a field, is safe.' Irish Times

'Magnificent.' i newspaper

'Explosive...delivers a skin-prickling masterclass in dread and suspense.' Economist

'Terrifying and brilliant...Dangerously addictive.' Chris Power, Guardian

'Exceptionally written...a superlative work of the imagination, resonant, beguiling and truly memorable.' Spectator

'Punches far above its weight...The sort of book that makes you look under the bed last thing at night and sleep with the light on.' Daily Mail

'Impossible to put down even while it forces you to cower under the sheets, queasy with unnameable fear.' Metro

'Samanta Schweblin's electric story reads like a Fever Dream.' Vanity Fair

'Dazzling, unforgettable, and deeply strange. I've never read anything like it.' Evening Standard, Books of the Year

Book Information
ISBN 9781786072382
Author Samanta Schweblin
Format Paperback
Page Count 160
Imprint Oneworld Publications
Publisher Oneworld Publications
Dimensions(mm) 180mm * 129mm * 12mm