The Shadow of the Object: Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2026

***LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2026***'We were charmed by the novels meditation on friendship and grief, and its suggestion that the most meaningful truths can be found in the shadows.'- Booker Prize Judges 2026'One of our boldest writers' Deborah LevyA magnificent work of shadow-play and a meditation on desire, metamorphosis and mortality.Flora is visiting home in Mexico when the family dog leaps up and bites her hand. She winds up in hospital where she undergoes several surgeries under anaesthesia and meets Wilhelmina, an elderly German woman with pneumonia, who collects pre-cinema toys and instruments. The two of them embark on a series of dream-like conversations in the hospital corridors. Wilhelmina puts on a magic lantern show for Flora, leaving her spellbound.When things take an unexpected turn, Flora finds herself entrusted with an important mission. She returns to London, where she resumes her job polishing silver at a jewellery shop, and strikes up a strange friendship with Wilhelminas son, Max. As Flora dips in and out of her imagination, she is increasingly aware its not only the magic lantern that projects, and her perception of reality is subtly altered.One of the most brilliant novelists working in English today Garth GreenwellThe politics of her prose is existential rather than anecdotal, as it was with Kafkas Zadie SmithA subtle and courageous writer Ali SmithChloe Aridjis is crafting a poetics of the strange TLS. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.…