London-based Fitzcarraldo Editions has announced November 15 as the publication date. The book has been translated by Jennifer Croft.
Setting the scene for the book launch, the Guardian daily describes The Books of Jacob as Tokarczuk’s magnum opus. Running to more than 1,100 pages, the book took Jennifer Croft seven years to translate.
The British daily quotes Tokarczuk as saying that “for someone who writes in a so-called ‘minor language’, being published in English is like being launched into outer space. Once it happens, the work becomes available everywhere and to practically anyone. I hope that as a result my local, true story set in the 18th century will become a universal tale about crossing borders and the spirit of rebellion that’s always smouldering within humankind.”
The Books of Jacob is Tokarczuk’s first novel to appear in English since she won the 2018 Nobel Prize for literature for “a narrative imagination that with encyclopaedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life”.
The Books of Jacob will also be published in the United States by Riverhead in February 2022.
In 2018, Tokarczuk’s Flights received the Man Booker International Prize for translated fiction.
(mk/pk)