The Incarnations

Beijing, 2008, the Olympics are coming, but as taxi driver Wang circles the city's congested streets, he feels barely alive. His daily grind is suddenly interrupted when he finds a letter in the sunshade of his cab. Someone is watching him. Someone who claims to be his soulmate and to have known him for over a thousand years.

THE GLOBAL CULT CLASSIC
An epic story of ghosts, obsession and betrayal spanning five lives and one thousand years of history.

A New York Times Editors' Choice and Notable Book of the Year

'Stunning. Flow along with this wonderful book.' Guardian
'Wildly ambitious... mesmerizing storytelling.' New York Times
________
You must be wondering who I am. I am your soulmate... I have come to this city of sixteen million in search of you

One ordinary morning in Beijing, taxi driver Wang Jun discovers a letter hidden inside the sun visor of his cab. The anonymous writer claims they have known him for over a thousand years.

More letters follow. Each reveals another forgotten life they once shared.

• A spirit bride fleeing human sacrifice
• Two starving boys crossing the Gobi Desert as Genghis Khan sweeps across China.
• Palace concubines caught in a murderous conspiracy inside the Forbidden City.
• A fisherman pulled into the violence of the Opium Wars.
• Two schoolfriends divided by the Cultural Revolution.

As each new letter draws Drive Wang deeper into his past lives, he becomes convinced that the writer is stalking him, coming closer than he could ever have imagined.

A kaleidoscopic novel of ghosts, reincarnation, history and impossible love, perfect for readers of R K Kuang, Marlon James, Emily St John Mandel and David Mitchell

PRAISE FOR SUSAN BARKER:
'[A] kaleidoscopically imaginative novel...Barker stitches together an unnervingly perceptive portrait of China and of the enduring influence that its past has on the present' THE NEW YORKER

'A thrilling journey through a thousand years of obsession and betrayal, this is the most extraordinary work of imagination you'll read all year' ADAM JOHNSON, Winner of the PULITZER Prize for Fiction

'Erudite, intriguing and compulsively readable, Susan Barker, a born story-teller, has written one of the most remarkable novels of recent years' JOHN BOYNE, author of THE HEART'S INVISIBLE FURIES

'A hallucinatory ride. Highly recommend' ANNA HOPE, author of EXPECTATION and ALBION