Author(s): Brian Short

Novel

After ten years in a Zen monastery, Proteus knows it's time to leave. A troubled, solitary man, he knows what he seeks is not to be found sitting in meditation. His problem is that, during his time at the monastery, he's discovered something strange inside his mind: the ability to connect with a mysterious, silent, metallic spherical object he calls Mosquito. His connection to this possibly extraterrestrial object, which seems to dwell on an existential plane of its own, gives Proteus a flimsy sense of purpose. So when Mosquito abruptly disappears one day, Proteus can't bear the loss, and he sets off in pursuit of answers.

Thus starts a surreal, philosophically maddening quest for meaning. Chasing the elusive Mosquito leads Proteus to in-between worlds where things do not quite hold together, and where the living and the dead must learn to live in and out of the boundaries of time. The further he gets from sanity, the closer he comes to something that may turn out to be wisdom.

Playful but unapologetically challenging, New People of the Flat Earth is a breathtakingly original novel that defies categorisation or summary.