The Lonely City

A dazzling investigation into loneliness, art and the modern city - 'A fierce and essential work' Helen Macdonald

Triumphant . . . A brave writer whose books open up fundamental questions about life and art

Luminously wise and deeply compassionate . . . A fierce and essential work

Wonderfully freewheeling . . . Constantly surprising . . . Inspired

The Lonely City is a stunning homage to how extreme loneliness can make us more hospitable to the strangeness of others - to the risks and innovations of art and artists. Laing has written a classic that will be cherished for years to come

A new kind of literature . . . Endlessly, compulsively fascinating

Unusually brave . . . Sublime

Laing cuts close to the bone of a universal yet often unrelatable state

A gifted critic and biographer . . . a fascinating, eerie piece of writing

One of the finest writers of the new non-fiction . . . Compelling and original

Exhilarating . . . beautifully integrated, original, compassionate

Olivia Laing is an internationally acclaimed writer and critic. They're the author of eight books, including Funny Weather , Everybody and the Sunday Times number one bestseller The Garden Against Time . Laing's first novel, Crudo , won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and in 2018 they were awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize for non-fiction. They are a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Arts and their books have been translated into twenty-one languages. Their latest novel is The Silver Book .

@olivialanguage | olivialaing.com