From the International Booker Prize-winning translator and Women's Prize finalist a propulsive
beguiling novel about eight translators and their search for a world-renowned author who goes
missing in a primeval Polish forest. Eight translators arrive at a house in a primeval Polish
forest on the border of Belarus. It belongs to the world-renowned author Irena Rey and they
are there to translate her magnum opus Gray Eminence . But within days of their arrival Irena
disappears without a trace. The translators who hail from eight different countries but
share the same reverence for their beloved author begin to investigate where she may have gone
while proceeding with work on her masterpiece. They explore this ancient wooded refuge with its
intoxicating slime moulds and lichens and study her exotic belongings and layered texts for
clues. But doing so reveals secrets - and deceptions - of Irena Rey's that they are utterly
unprepared for. Forced to face their differences as they grow increasingly paranoid in this
fever dream of isolation and obsession soon the translators are tangled up in a web of
rivalries and desire threatening not only their work but the fate of their beloved author
herself. This hilarious thought-provoking second outing by award-winning translator and
author Jennifer Croft is a brilliant examination of art celebrity the natural world and the
power of language. It is an unforgettable unputdownable adventure with a small but global cast
of characters shaken by the shocks of love destruction and creation in one of Europe's last
great wildernesses.
