Universality

LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE - "A bold and memorable achievement."--The Booker Prize 2025 judges

Remember--words are your weapons, they're your tools, your currency a twisty, slippery descent into the rhetoric of power, hailed as "a nesting doll of satire that leaves readers uncertain where their loyalties lie" (Financial Times)

"Original, vital, and unputdownable."--Tess Gunty, National Book Award-winning author of The Rabbit Hutch

AN NPR AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

Late one night on a Yorkshire farm, in the midst of an illegal rave, a young man is nearly bludgeoned to death with a solid gold bar.

An ambitious young journalist sets out to uncover the truth surrounding the attack, connecting the dots between an amoral banker landlord, an iconoclastic newspaper columnist, and a radical anarchist movement that has taken up residence on the farm. She solves the mystery, but her viral exposé raises more questions than it answers. Through a voyeuristic lens, and with a simmering power, Universality focuses on words: what we say, how we say it, and what we really mean.

A thrilling novel from one of the most acclaimed young novelists working today, Universality is a compelling, unsettling celebration of the spectacular, appalling force of language. It dares you to look away.