Author(s): Tea Obreht

Novel | Dystopia, Science Fiction and Fantasy

There's the world you can see. And then there's the one you can't. Welcome to The Morningside.

Silvia feels unmoored in her new life because her mother has been so diligently secretive about their family's past. Silvia knows almost nothing about the place she was born and spent her early years; nor does she know why she and her mother had to leave. But in Ena there is an opening: a person willing to give a young girl glimpses into the folktales of her demolished homeland, a place of natural beauty and communal spirit that is lacking in Silvia's lonely and impoverished reality.

Enchanted by Ena's stories, Silvia begins seeing the world with magical possibilities, and becomes obsessed with the mysterious older woman who lives in the penthouse of the Morningside. Bezi Duras is an enigma to everyone in the building; she has her own elevator entrance, and only leaves to go out at night and walk her three massive hounds, often not returning until the early morning.

Silvia's mission to unravel the truth about this woman's life, and her own haunted past, may end up costing her everything.

Startling, inventive, and profoundly moving, THE MORNINGSIDE is a novel about the stories we tell, and the stories we refuse to tell, to make sense of where we came from, and who we hope we might become.

Review:
Obreht is a novelist of great skill and warmth, for whom the ancient forms of storytelling - folk tales, myths and legends - retain all their capacity to explain and mystify, soothe and terrify . . . Though The Morningside could be called dystopian, to this reader it feels hopeful in the way it imagines the near future . . . more about the ways we pull together than the ways we fall apart * Guardian *
I marveled at the subtle beauty and precision of Obreht's prose. . . Read in the context of today's conflicts and injustices, climate emergencies, and political and racial divisions-together more dystopian than any dystopian novel-the book surprised me most with its undercurrent of hope -- Jessamine Chan, author of The School for Good Mothers * The New York Times (Editors' Choice) *
Like all of Obreht's work, The Morningside is filled with tiny moments of acute observation and beautiful writing that will make you stop and gasp . . . you'll be thinking about it all long after you've finished reading. A magical, special book by one of our best working novelists * Lit Hub *
Fresh and immensely gripping, The Morningside is a rich saga of migration and the search for belonging, bravely imagining our capacity for survival and love in an uncertain future. . . . A stunning achievement -- Claire Vaye Watkins, author of I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness
Obreht is offering a cautionary vision of what our future might look like, but she's also asking questions that are as old as storytelling. What do we want to tell ourselves about ourselves? What do we try to hide from ourselves? And what's the cost of our lives? * Kirkus Reviews (starred review) *
As in her previous richly imagined and profoundly insightful novels . . . Obreht writes at the crossroads of myth and history, but here with a twist as she envisions a catastrophic tomorrow in which rampaging forces of nature and human atrocities intensify in impact and scope. . . . A bewitchingly atmospheric, psychologically lush, and deeply knowing tale of ancient sorrows and coalescing crises, courage and fortitude * Booklist (starred review) *

Author Biography: Tea Obreht is the author of THE TIGER'S WIFE, winner of the Orange Prize and a finalist for the National Book Award, and INLAND. She was born in Belgrade, in the former Yugoslavia, in 1985 and has lived in the United States since the age of twelve. She currently lives in New York City.