Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

"Well, it’s interesting that she calls it a classic murder mystery, because we did have some classic murder mysteries in front of us of the 108 to judge and this really stood out because of its differences. It is a murder mystery, and therefore it rattles along, but it’s also a philosophical contemplation on man’s relationship with the natural world, and our relationships to those that we deem to be marginal—at the edge of society—and how we react to them. So it’s incredibly saturated with thought throughout. The title is taken from lines of William Blake and there are passages throughout where characters celebrate Blake’s ideas and philosophies. So it’s incredibly rich, and it’s really transportive, both metaphysically and physically. You feel like you’re inhabiting the spaces and landscapes that are being described. We didn’t know what to expect, and we were all absolutely blown away by it. “Tokarczuk doesn’t seem to care about seducing the reader. She’s not using cheap tricks” We loved the fact that sometimes Tokarczuk doesn’t seem to care about seducing the reader. She’s not using cheap tricks to get the reader on board. And despite its rather bleak title, there’s a lot of humour in there. So yes, it’s a fantastically rich book. Absolutely. In the judges’ comment, we talked about Drive Your Plow as being an indictment of humanity in its casual corruption of the natural world. So it’s very of the moment."