The Idiot

The ingenious, hilarious new novel from award-winning writer Elif Batuman - It's a novel about being young and stupid that's both wise and clever - and it's a treat Evening Standard

I loved it and could have read a thousand more pages of it Emma Cline, author of The Girls

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2018

Selin, a tall, highly strung Turkish-American from New Jersey, turns up at Harvard with no idea what to expect. What she doesn't expect is:

• How much time she will spend thinking about language and its limitations
• An opinionated cosmopolitan Serb named Svetlana, who will become her confidante
• A mathematician from Hungary called Ivan, whom she will obsess over when she is supposed to be studying
• Feeling dangerously overwhelmed by the challenges and possibilities of adulthood

But most of all, Selin does not expect to embark on a study of precisely how baffling love can be when you are trying to forge a self...

PRAISE FOR The Idiot

A moving, continent-hopping coming-of-age story Observer

Elif Batuman surely has one of the best senses of humour...refreshing and unique Sheila Heti

Full of zingy one-liners Financial Times

Hilarious, brilliant observations about writing, life and crushes Curtis Sittenfeld

Delightful and slyly funny Red