The Empusium

‘One among a very few signal European novelists of the past quarter-century.’ – Economist‘A potent blend of horror tropes and literary references (Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann)…Readers will find much to savour.’ * Publishers Weekly *‘A magnificent writer.’ – Svetlana Alexievich, Nobel Prize in Literature laureate 2015‘The Nobel Prize winner’s trippy new novel fuses folk horror with mystery and comedy. In a Silesian health resort in 1913, a Polish student and his fellow patients have circular, misogynistic debates fuelled by hallucinogenic local liqueur. Meanwhile, rumours swirl about mysterious deaths and woodland rituals. Tokarczuk reinvents Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain within the current tread for wellness retreat thrillers, weaving a portrait of pre-war Europe that is also an eerie feminist parable.’ * Bookseller UK *‘A dark, feminist novel—atmospheric, creepy, and absolutely perfect.’ * LitHub *’The Empusium is an emphatic triumph—a feast of culture, both literary and popular, highbrow and low, that shows Tokarczuk writing at the peak of her powers and enjoying every moment of it…I was in thrall to this from the first page.’ * Bram Presser, Sydney Morning Herald *‘Deft and disturbing…In Antonia Lloyd-Jones’ crisp translation, Tokarczuk tells a folk horror story with a deceptively light and knowing tone…Elegant and genuinely unsettling.’ * New York Times *‘An odd, fascinating book—a blackly serious joke—from an author of great daring and intelligence…The writing, in a cultivated translation by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, shared the easygoing gait and twinkling irony of Mann’s novel…It makes for absorbing if often mystifying reading, but what stands out most is the philosophical conflict it stages between rationality and folk belief.’ * Wall Street Journal *‘In Tokarczuk’s hands, the staid genre of the bildungsroman erupts with sinister possibility.’ * Washington Post *‘A novel that in Tokarczuk’s dexterous hands transcends its own limits, further cementing the Nobel laureate as one of the most original storytellers of our age.’ * Financial Times *‘The Nobel Laureate’s bloody and moody fairy tale will blow your mind…Tokarczuk keeps the suspense at a low boil throughout, balancing moments of terror and revolution…Until the horror and the beauty can no longer be contained, that is, and erupt into the novel’s utterly sublime conclusion. As ever, Tokarczuk’s prose—and Antonia Lloyd-Jones’ glorious translation thereof from the Polish—will knock the wind out of you…If The Empusium soars during its descriptions of stuff and setting—the witchy forest that surrounds the sick house especially seduces.’ * San Francisco Chronicle *‘Tokarczuk’s newest masterpiece is positioned to be the book of the fall. From mystery drinks and deaths to commentary upon religion and gender, this book is the literary horror story that eagerly awaits your Autumn reading list…With fall chills fast approaching, there is no better book to read. A magnificently haunting portrayal of health, death, and all that comes in between, The Empusium is one of Tokarczuk’s best works to date.’ * Chicago Review of Books *‘Tokarczuk’s deft, dark satirical wit is on full display in The Empusium…Tokarczuk, as usual, casts her enthralling spell.’ * BookPage *‘Boy this is so good. This is so good.’ * Kate Evans, ABC RN The Bookshelf *‘A student, Wojnicz, heads to a Polish health resort to recover from tuberculosis, but he—and the people around him—don’t seem to be getting any better. It is dark and gritty and written through a feminist lens.’ * Matilda Bookshop *‘This is so funny…A very clever and interesting book.’ * RNZ Nine to Noon *‘The pleasures of Tokarczuk’s prose are in the neat little tricks of noticing, veering into the supernatural and strange.’ * Saturday Paper *‘An odd, fascinating book—a blackly serious joke—from an author of great daring and intelligence…The writing, in a cultivated translation by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, shares the easygoing gait and twinkling irony of Mann’s novel…It makes for absorbing if often mystifying reading, but what stands out most is the philosophical conflict it stages between rationality and folk belief.’ * Australian *‘A century after the publication of The Magic Mountain, Tokarczuk revisits Thomas Mann territory and lays claim to it, blending horror story, comedy, folklore, and feminist parable with brilliant storytelling.’ * Forever Lost in Literature *‘The Empusium had a lot to live up to, but did not disappoint…It’s a gimlet-eyed book about ideas and idealogies, and the dangers of drawing neat categories in a beautifully un-neat world.’ * Bustle *‘A folk horror story with a deceptively light and knowing tone…Elegant and genuinely unsettling.’ * New York Times Book Review *‘A gleefully mischievous feminist riposte to Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain.’ * Daily Mail *‘The Empusium is an abounding treasure trove of ideas. A pastiche of Mann’s Magic Mountain, Tokarczuk’s protagonist is sent to a sanatorium steeped in mystery. The novel mocks famous “thinkers” and their sexist ideas by exposing how utterly ridiculous they are, whilst also maintaining a scary, mysterious aura. A gendered, comedic and folk horror story that is more than worth the read.’ * Angus, Better Read Than Dead *‘There’s a ghostly presence in this book…Ideas and philosophy and misogyny and mystery…’ * Cassie McCullagh, ABC RN The Bookshelf, Best Books of 2024 *‘Olga Tokarczuk’s brilliant “Health Resort Horror Story”, The Empusium, has kept me up in recent nights with its fable of national misogyny on the eve of war: a vision of “a very brief moment of equilibrium between light and darkness”. Too true.’ * Patrick Flanery *‘Disquieting and wickedly self-aware.’ * Doug Wallen, Big Issue *‘[Tokarczuk’s] writing is rich, yet also disciplined and restrained, full of striking imagery, inventive metaphors and poetic observations…Underlying her freewheeling approach is a clarity of vision, oriented towards social justice and compassion for humanity. The way she assembles disparate elements always has a purpose, both political and aesthetic. She is not an iconoclast for its own sake, but always seeks some higher understanding, some fresh new angle, on an issue of importance.’ * Anthony Macris, University of Technology Sydney *‘A deft new take on the novel of ideas and convalescence.’ * Conversation *‘5 stars. This layered, wonderful book, which is modelled in part on a book by Thomas Mann, hints at horror lurking beneath a civilised veneer…’ * Penelope Debelle, SA Weekend *

Olga Tokarczuk is the winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature and the Man Booker International Prize, for her novel Flights. She has received many other honours, including her country Poland’s highest literary award, the Nike, for both Flights and The Books of Jacob. Her novel Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead was also highly praised. She is the author of more than a dozen works of fiction, a children’s book and two collections of essays. Her work has been translated into more than fifty languages. Widely regarded as one of the most important writers of her generation, she lives in Poland.