RELEASE DATE - 2 FEBRUARY 2023

This book is being signed on the day of release by the author. You will receive this signed book a couple of days after the release date.

'This life-stuffed novel is Aleksandar Hemon’s masterpiece'
David Mitchell

‘Only the past matters, because it is the only thing that outlives everything and everyone.’

This is a story of broken bones and poetic souls, and of a love so strong it defeats several wars, two revolutions, two separations and two deaths.

Osman, a Muslim, and Pinto, a Jew, grow up in multilingual Sarajevo at the beginning of the twentieth century, coming of age as young men just in time to find themselves drafted into their Austro-Hungarian imperial overlords’ army, and floating to war on a tide of mud, fear, violence and horror that will carry them as POWs deep into the central Asian steppe, where the waves of the Russian Revolution break over them.

A baby daughter arrives, as does a ghost, and this caravan of three endures evacuations, migrations and frostbite, crossing deserts, passes, trenches, before reaching the haze of Shanghai, and another world war, and another revolution. And all the while they are accompanied by a noisily absent God.

Theirs is an epic story of a world in convulsion, of millions broken between war, displacement and revolution, and also of individual bonds so strong that they stretch from Sarajevo to Shanghai without snapping, and encompass all.

‘Weep for the soul that cannot go home and not for the mourners hiding in a wall.’

"Aleksandar Hemon’s The World and All That It Holds is one of the finest novels I’ve ever read, and like all great stories, it refuses to be pigeonholed. It’s a road novel, an immigrant tale, a ghost story, a family portrait, a mystery, a historical epic, a war novel, and yes, a love story―it is all that and more, a feat of unfettered literary bravura. In short, a masterpiece."
Rabih Alameddine

"The World and All that It Holds is an explosive novel. Bursting with energy, wits, and insights, it’s an epic meditation on history, philosophy, and human conditions. Aleksandar Hemon once again proves himself to be one of our most innovative and invigorating novelists."
Yiyun Li