Pure Colour

Pure Colour

the new novel from the author of Motherhood and How Should A Person Be?

Summary

** SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2023**
** WINNER OF THE 2022 GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD IN FICTION**


Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vulture, The Times Literary Supplement, and more

'Beautiful and impossible to put down. Sheila Heti is a genius.' Avni Doshi

'This one-of-a-kind novel... feels nothing less than vital.' Observer

'Pure Colour is an original, a book that says something new for our difficult times.' Anne Enright, Guardian

'A treat to read.' Stylist


What if this world is just a first draft, made by some great artist in order to be destroyed?

In this first draft, a woman named Mira leaves home to study. There, she meets Annie, whose tremendous power opens Mira's chest like a portal - to what, she doesn't know. When Mira is older, her beloved father dies, and she enters that strange and dizzying dimension that true loss opens up.

Pure Colour tells the story of a life, from beginning to end. It is a galaxy of a novel: explosive, celestially bright, huge, and streaked with beauty. It is a contemporary bible, an atlas of feeling, and a shape-shifting epic. Sheila Heti is a philosopher of modern experience, and she has reimagined what a book can hold.
_____

PRAISE FOR SHEILA HETI:
'Exhilarating...it made me want to write' Sally Rooney, on How Should a Person Be?
'Sheila Heti has broken new ground' Rachel Cusk, on Motherhood
'Complex, artfully messy and hilarious' Miranda July, on How Should a Person Be?
'Thrilling, very funny, and almost unbearably moving' Garth Greenwell, on Motherhood
'Courageous, necessary, visionary' Elif Batuman, on Motherhood

Reviews

  • An impressive spectrum of meaning and feeling, both abstract and tangible... This one-of-a-kind novel... feels nothing less than vital.
    Anthony Cummins, Observer

About the author

Sheila Heti

Sheila Heti is the author of ten books, including the novels Pure Colour, Motherhood and How Should a Person Be?, which New York magazine deemed one of the 'New Classics' of the twenty-first century and which was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction. Her novels have been translated into twenty-four languages. She lives in Toronto and Kawartha Lakes, Ontario.
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