Andrew Crumey

An 18-th c Prince creates an ideal city on paper which comes to life

A triptych about an old man discovering the internet and sex, Rousseau and Proust.

Andrew Crumeys novels are renowned for their unique blend of science, history, philosophy and humour. Now he brings the same insight and originality to this story cycle whose title offers an ironic twist on the ancient doctrine of connectedness, the great chain of being. Here we find a blind man contemplating the light of an atom bomb, a musician disturbed by a conspiracy of radio waves, a visitor to Moscow caught up in a comic case of mistaken identity, a woman on a Greek island trying to become a different person. We range across time, from the Renaissance to a globally-warmed future, across light-years in search of hallucinogenic space-plankton, and into magical worlds of talking insects and bottled fire. Fans of Crumeys acclaimed novels will occasionally spot hints of themes and figures that have recurred throughout his fiction; readers new to his work will delight in finding subtle links within the pieces. Are they all part of some larger untold story? We have nothing to lose but the chains of our imagination: what lies beyond is a great change of being.

Three novellas bound together in a highly-acclaimed post-modern literary triptych

Alost musical masterpiece is at the heart of this gripping intellectual mystery

Cult fiction techno-thriller about how real is reality

Sputnik Caledonia was awarded the prestigious Northern Rock Foundation Writers Award and was shortlisted for The James Tait Black Prize and The Scottish Book of the Year Award. Robbie Coyle is an imaginative kid. He wants so badly to become Scotlands first cosmonaut that he tries to teach himself Russian and trains for space exploration in the cupboard under the sink. But the eplaces to which his fantasies later take him is far from the safety of his suburban childhood. In a communist state, in a closed bleak town, the mysterious Red Star heralds his discovery of cruelty and of love, and the possibility that the most passionate of dreams may only be a chimera... This a surprisingly moving novel about the impersonal forces - be they political, quantum, temporal or otherwise - that can threaten or shatter the bonds of love, and of family life. Never has astrophysics seemed so touching and funny. Sinclair McKay in The Daily Telegraph. a stimulating read, full of political, philosophical and scientific thought experiments. Jonathan Gibbs in The Independent. Andrew Crumey was born in Glasgow in 1961. He read theoretical physics and mathematics at St Andrews University and Imperial College in London, before doing post-doctoral research at Leeds University on nonlinear dynamics. After a spell of being the literary editor at Scotland on Sunday he now combines teaching creative writing at Northumbria University with his writing.He is the author of seven novels: Music, in a Foreign Language (1994), Pfitz (1995), DAlemberts Principle (1996), Mr Mee (2000, Dedalus edition 2014), Mobius Dick (2004, Dedalus edition 2014) Sputnik Caledonia( 2008, Dedalus edition forthcoming in 2015)) and The Secret Knowledge (2013). Andrew Crumeys novels have been translated into 14 languages.

Britain with the same post-war history as East Europe battling against a totalitarian regime. "The strikingly inventive structure of this novel allows the author to explore the similarities between fictions and history. At any point, there are infinite possibilities for the way the story, a life, or the history of the world might progress. The whole work is enjoyably unpredictable, and poses profound questions about the issues of motivation, choice and morality." The Sunday Times Music, in a Foreign Language won The Saltire Best First Book Award and launched the literary career of one of the UKs cleverest and most original post-modern novelists.

Simultaneously a touching human story, a meditation on art and science, and a primer on Beethovens life and work, Andrew Crumeys ninth novel skilfully weaves history, music, erudition and humour in a page-turning mystery that will resonate in the readers mind long afterwards.A lost opera and a dark conspiracy lie at the heart of this philosophical comedy which views Beethoven through the eyes of multiple characters across time, linked by strange events at a rambling country house. Nowadays a retreat for artists, scientists and researchers, the house was formerly an asylum with a clairvoyant inmate, and before that, a location for esoteric experiments. As labyrinthine as the architecture is a plot whose themes include Crusader legends and 1920s literary London, mesmerism and freemasonry, psychoanalysis and theosophy. Holding everything together is a present-day scholar whose pandemic disasters propel him into the byways of history and towards an untimely demise.

El profesor John Ringer recibe en su teléfono móvil un inesperado mensaje: «Llámame: H.» Su reacción instintiva Le lleva a pensar en Helen, una antigua amante de la que sigue enamorado y a la que no

Andrew Crumey ha escrito una novela de ingenio e inventiva singulares, en la tradición de Italo Calvino y de Jorge Luis Borges. Meticulosamente elaborada, El principio de DAlembert es un fascinante triptico historico sobre la memoria, la razon y la imaginacion, situado en el mundo, opulento y esplendido, de la Europa del siglo XVIII.

Un príncipe del siglo XVIII dedica toda su fortuna y todas las energías de sus súbditos a la creación de Rreinnstadt, una ciudad fantástica que sólo existe sobre el papel y en la imaginación de sus creadores. Andrew Crumey desarrolla su relato con un rigor admirable... Hay alegria en la libertad, en el gusto por los juegos y paradojas, por las anecdotas y fabulas. Andrew Miller, The New York Times Book Review. Elaborada con elementos fantasticos, la novela de Andrew Crumey se alza como un museo monumental en el centro de su ciudad imaginaria, como un edificio de erudicion. Andrea Ashworth, The Times Literary Supplement. A este ritmo Crumey puede convertirse en un heroe de los aficionados a la euronovela posmoderna. Jonathan Coe, The Guardian

Una Inglaterra que fue ocupada por los nazis y acaba de salir de una larga dictadura comunista. Un escritor empeñado en escribir una novela imposible que se dispersa en mil direcciones. Una historia intrigante, marcada por el deseo y la traicion, que involucra a dos profesores de Cambridge, uno de fisica y otro de historia, hostigados por la policia comunista britanica. Esta novela, concebida como imitacion formal de las Variaciones Goldberg de Bach, heredera directa de Italo Calvino, con ecos de Kundera y Orwell y una ingeniosa reinterpretacion de Borges y Tolstoi, abrio en 1994 la trayectoria de Andrew Crumey (Glasgow, 1961), uno de los novelistas escoceses mas originales de la actualidad, cuya obra se caracteriza por una conexion profunda entre artes y ciencias de un modo que recuerda a las peliculas de Christopher Nolan.Dotada de intriga y emocion, de corazon y cerebro, sencilla y compleja a la vez, esta novela es un tour de force narrativo que nos ofrece una meditacion sobre la traicion y la culpa, sobre la historia de los individuos y de las naciones, sobre la musica, la ciencia y el singular funcionamiento de la memoria.