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The ingenious, hilarious new novel from award-winning writer Elif Batuman - ´It´s a novel about being young and stupid that´s both wise and clever - and it´s a treat´ Evening Standard

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN´S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2018

Selin, a tall, highly strung Turkish-American from New Jersey turns up at Harvard and finds herself dangerously overwhelmed by the challenges and possibilities of adulthood. She studies linguistics and literature, and spends a lot of time thinking about what language - and languages - can and cannot do. Along the way she befriends Svetlana, a cosmopolitan Serb, and obsesses over Ivan, a mathematician from Hungary.

Selin ponders profound questions about how culture and language shape who we are, how difficult it is to be a failed writer, and how baffling love is. At once clever and clueless, Batuman´s heroine shows us with perfect hilarity and soulful inquisitiveness just how messy it can be to forge a self.

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"I loved it and could have read a thousand more pages of it. It presented this almost moment-by-moment experience of life, in a way that I just felt Batuman had so much control. There´s so much wit and pleasure in her writing you feel very comfortable being in the world she´s created." Emma Cline, author of THE GIRLS

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