Wretchedness

Beauty and poverty; violence, addiction and brotherhood. Written with unstoppable flow, Wretchedness mixes high and low culture in an inimitable way. Winner of the 2021 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize Shortlisted for the 2016 August Prize Longlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize Malmö, Sweden. A cellist meets a spun-out junkie. That could have been me. His mind starts to glitch between his memories and the avant-garde music he loves, and he descends into his past, hearing all over again the chaotic song of his youth. He emerges to a different sound, heading for a crash. From sprawling housing projects to underground clubs and squat parties, Wretchedness is a blistering trip through the underbelly of Europe’s cities. Powered by a furious, unpredictable beat, this is a paean to brotherhood, to those who didn’t make it however hard they fought, and a visceral indictment of the poverty which took them.