Winner of the 2018 International Booker Prize and 2018 Nobel Prize for literature, Olga Tokarczuk returns to fiction with a heady, atmospheric 'health resort horror story'.
Written 100 years after the publication of The Magic Mountain, The Empusium is written both as a response and a feminist retelling of Thomas Mann's canonical work.
We follow Miczyslaw Wojnik's arrival at a sanatorium set in the lush and dense mountainous forests of Germany, where the alpine air is touted as an antidote to all its inhabitants' ills.
Following strict regimens of diet and exercise and using their downtime to muse on the state of a nation on the brink of war, the patients are aware of beady eyes following every move- are they being watched by the staff? Or is there a more sinister presence lurking in the shadows of the mountain fauna?
A novel filled with socratic dialogue and a rich, divinical atmosphere, The Empusium is a stunning and sinister exploration into the roots of facism and misogyny, as relevant today as it's predecessor was almost a century ago.
