It began with a spark...

A house is burning. Its six tenants include a failed priest, a naturalist, a neurosurgeon and a photographer. Their landlord's relationship to them is both intimate and shadowy. At times he shares their obsessions and memories. He will also share their fate.

The passions of these individuals reach beyond the dying house that holds them. One recalls a lonely childhood, another the cremation grounds of India, another an African refugee camp. But will their stories be consumed forever by the flames?

The breathtaking, emotionally wrenching new novel from the award-winning novelist and travel writer, Colin Thubron

About the Author
Colin Thubron is an acknowledged master of travel writing, and the winner of many prizes and awards. His first writing was about the Middle East - Damascus, Lebanon and Cyprus. In 1982 he travelled into the Soviet Union in an ancient Morris Marina, pursued by the KGB, a journey he recorded in Among the Russians. From these early experiences developed his classic travel books: Behind the Wall (winner of the Hawthornden Prize and the Thomas Cook Travel Award), The Lost Heart of Asia, In Siberia (Prix Bouvier) and Shadow of the Silk Road. His most recent book is To a Mountain in Tibet (all available in Vintage). Colin Thubron was President of the Royal Society of Literature from 2010 to 2017.

Reviews
Thubron returns with what might be his masterpiece... Thubron's prose shines a penetrating light on the nature of memory and being human. Sublime. -- Simon Humphreys * Mail on Sunday *
Intensely moving -- Tim Martin * Sunday Telegraph *
An engrossing, unsettling and brutally beautiful masterpiece. -- John Harding * Daily Mail *
Each life story...is told with all this writer's irresistible narrative gift -- Ursula K. Le Guin * Guardian *
Medicine owes an equal debt of gratitude to him for evoking a journey through the brain with the same adventurous and beguiled spirit as he might a rainforest or ancient city... With the ease of a master craftsman he makes up new words...lovingly evokes the extraordinary places he has passed through... This outstanding novel confirms that there is nowhere Thubron fears to tread. -- Melissa Katsoulis * The Times *



Book Information
ISBN 9780099532651
Author Colin Thubron
Format Paperback
Page Count 384
Imprint Vintage
Publisher Vintage Publishing
Weight(grams) 266g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 23mm