“You are the Beloved Child of the House,” Piranesi tells himself – but his isolation is both haven and prison. The Other wants to exploit this strange realm’s resources, to colonise dangerous new territory for his own glory Piranesi is alert to the life force rippling through it, and content to live in community with non-human beings. And this novel about another world has a clear and current message for our own: it dramatises the question of whether humanity’s role is to conquer or to belong. Published into the pandemic, this story of isolation took on an uncanny wider relevance – we were all confined to our own small worlds, and driven deeper into inner spaces. Perhaps that’s why a book so singular and surreal – perhaps, Clarke thought at first, just too peculiar – has connected so deeply with readers. Its roots are in a labyrinthine short story by Borges and the fantastical prison etchings of the 18th-century artist who gives the book its name, but also in the collective subconscious of dreams. Piranesi is a very different book: restrained, austere, written out of the long illness that plagued Clarke after the success of her debut.

It’s what made readers fall in love with her 2004 debut, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, an epic slice of rambunctious alternate history set in a Regency England tinged with magic. It’s difficult to describe Piranesi to a new reader, as you don’t want to deprive them of the sheer storytelling pleasure of being taken into another world – something Clarke shares with her fantasy influences CS Lewis, Diana Wynne Jones and Neil Gaiman.

Piranesi susanna clarke pdf