2023 Longlist
In this captivating tale of imagination and ambition, a seemingly disparate array of people come into contact with a time traveller who must resist the pull to change the past and the future. The cast includes a British exile on the west coast of Canada in the early 1900s; the author of a bestselling novel about a fictional pandemic who embarks on a galaxy-spanning book tour during the outbreak of an actual pandemic; a resident of a moon colony almost 300 years in the future; and a lonely girl who films an old-growth forest and experiences a disruption in the recording. Blurring the lines between reality and fantasy, Emily St. John Mandel’s dazzling story follows these engrossing characters across space and time as their lives ultimately intersect. Sea of Tranquility is a breathtaking and wondrous examination of the ties that bind us together, by a master storyteller.
About the Author:
Emily St. John Mandel is the author of five previous novels, most recently The Glass Hotel, which was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and was longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Station Eleven was a finalist for a National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award. It also won the 2015 Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Toronto Book Award and the Morning News Tournament of Books, has been translated into thirty-four languages, and was made into an acclaimed limited TV series. Emily St. John Mandel lives in New York City with her husband and daughter.
Nominating Library’s Comments:
A fantastic (in all senses of the word) novel that somehow weaves a mystery and time travel and colonies on the moon and a pandemic and a double homicide together into a beautiful, life-affirming story. – Winnipeg Public Library, Canada
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St John Mandel is a masterpiece of speculative fiction, tying together historical fiction, time travel and references to our own experiences living through the Covid-19 pandemic in an ultimately hopeful exploration of the nature of existence and human connection. A time traveling detective sent to gather evidence about a rift in the fabric of reality is the thread that draws together disparate characters across centuries including an author very similar to St John Mandel herself. She writes beautifully, rendering the old growth forests of British Colombia and decaying moon colonies of the future equally with equal parts romance, imagination and vivid detail, instilling nostalgia for both. Captivating, deceptively light, Sea of Tranquility nevertheless touches on weighty topics—colonialism, the environment, loneliness, morality in a thought-provoking way. – Ottawa Public Library, Canada