Cold Skin

Description

'A troubling, hammering and glorious novel' - David Mitchell On the edge of the Antarctic Circle, in the years after World War One, a steamship approaches a desolate island. On board is a young man on his way to assume the post of weather observer, to live in solitude for a year at the end of the earth. But on shore he finds no trace of the man whom he has been sent to replace, just a deranged castaway who has witnessed a horror he refuses to name. The rest is woods, a deserted cabin, rocks, silence and the surrounding sea. Then night begins to fall . . .

Albert S.nchez Pi.ol was born in Barcelona in 1965. He is an anthropologist, non-fiction writer and novelist writing in Catalan and Castilian Spanish. His first novel, Cold Skin, has been translated into thirty-seven languages, won the Ojo Critico Narrativa prize on its original publication in Catalan in 2003 and is being adapted for film. He is also the author of Pandora in the Congo, among other books.

A troubling, hammering and glorious novel -- DAVID MITCHELL Thrillingly vivid . . . Sanchez Pinol creates a struggle for survival that is, at the same time, a meditation on humanity * * The Times * * Beguiling . . . Pinol's dark tale lingers long after the shivers running down the spine have ceased * * The Scotsman * * A creepily compelling debut from this Barcelona-based author that reads like a sinister version of a Boy's Own survival adventure * * Financial Times * * Remarkable . . . An addictive and unsettling read -- ALAN WARNER A great, creepy, tender read -- YANN MARTEL Superbly controlled and creepy . . . Akin to Lord of the Flies or Heart of Darkness rewritten as pulp-horror schlock * * The Independent on Sunday * * Astonishing . . . There is something of Edgar Allan Poe . . . In general, however, Cold Skin would appear to be an example of that rare thing: an original story which emerged, immaculately and unexpectedly, from its author's subconscious * * Times Literary Supplemant * * Brilliantly suspenseful * * Spectator * *