SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN FICTION
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 2021
AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB SELECTION
AN AMAZON BEST BOOK OF SEPTEMBER 2021

THE BRAND NEW NOVEL FROM THE PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING, BOOKER PRIZE-SHORTLISTED AUTHOR OF THE OVERSTORY

'Powers has extraordinary gifts as a writer' GUARDIAN

'Impressively precise in its scientific conjectures, Bewilderment is no less rich or wise in its emotionality' OBSERVER

'He composes some of the most beautiful sentences I've ever read. I'm in awe of his talent' OPRAH WINFREY

Theo Byrne is a promising young scientist who has found a way to search for life on other planets dozens of light years away. He is also the widowed father of a most unusual nine-year-old. His son Robin is funny, loving and filled with plans. He thinks and feels deeply, adores animals and can spend hours painting elaborate pictures. He is also on the verge of being expelled from school for smashing his friend's face with a thermos.

What can a father do, when the only solution offered to his rare and troubled boy is to put him on psychoactive drugs? What can he say when his boy comes to him wanting an explanation for a world that is clearly in love with its own destruction? The only thing for it is to take the boy to other planets, all while fostering his son's desperate attempt to save this one.

At the heart of Bewilderment lies the question: How can we tell our children the truth about this beautiful, imperiled planet?

'Both touching and finely written' TELEGRAPH

'It is impossible to deny the importance of Powers's message' SUNDAY TIMES

'Refreshing, original and moving' EVENING STANDARD

He composes some of the most beautiful sentences I've ever read. I'm in awe of his talent -- Oprah Winfrey
Both touching and finely written * Daily Telegraph *
Deftly crafted . . . packs an emotional punch * Daily Mail *
Heartfelt . . . with fantastical digressions to other planets and a rueful celebration of our own * Guardian *
Powers has the rare gift of being able to deal with big ideas while keeping you interested in the lives and emotions of his characters -- Sebastian Faulks
Beautiful and thoughtfully written * Good Housekeeping *
A compelling story about love in a dying world * Irish Independent *
It is impossible to deny the importance of Powers's message * Sunday Times *
Powers is . . . a wizard when it comes to telling us about trees, rivers, insects and birds * Spectator *
Extraordinary . . . Powers's insightful, often poetic prose draws us at once more deeply toward the infinitude of the imagination * New York Times *
Remarkable . . . channels both the cosmic sublime and that of the vast American outdoors * Observer *
Mingling ideas about neurodivergence, astrobiology, political radicalisation and environmental collapse... There is no question that Powers is a novelist of considerable, well, powers.... Bewilderment is both touching and finely written * Telegraph *
Reading a Powers novel is like boarding a tour bus when you have a single day to explore an unfamiliar city. Bewilderment, his Booker-longlisted new novel, is a hop-on, hop-off trip around astrobiology, climate breakdown and neuro-feedback therapy... it is impossible to deny the importance of Powers's message * Sunday Times *
Powers is a former computer programmer whose ideas-rich fiction grounds the grandest scientific concepts in everyday experience. For him, environmental crisis means that we must share the pain not just of fellow-humans but other life-forms threatened by our botched stewardship of Earth.... Powers's unchained imagination stretches its empathy circle from lichen to nebulae, in finely crafted prose * Financial Times *
Refreshing, original and moving * Evening Standard *
Powers has the rare gift of being able to deal with big ideas while keeping you interested in the lives and emotions of his characters -- Sebastian Faulks
A heartfelt cry for climate awareness, with fantastical digressions to other planets and a rueful celebration of our own * Guardian *
It's a wonderful story - taut, touching and wholehearted * Psychologies *
Intense and disturbing * Mail on Sunday *
A beautiful and thoughtfully written novel * Good Housekeeping *
Impressively precise in its scientific conjectures, Bewilderment is no less rich or wise in its emotionality.... channels both the cosmic sublime and that of the vast American outdoors, resting confidently in a lineage with Thoreau and Whitman, Dillard and Kerouac... Sorrowing awe is Bewilderment's primary tone, and its many remarkable scenes are controlled with high novelistic intelligence. * Observer *
It's deftly crafted, packs an emotional punch, and Powers's urgent environmental message, delivered by the Greta Thunberg-like Robin, comes through loud and clear * Daily Mail *
Powers is extremely good at creating a very specific emotion in the reader: a potent mix of sadness and guilt. He's also a wizard when it comes to telling us about trees, rivers, insects and birds * Spectator *
Bewilderment is a compelling story about love in a dying world * Irish Independent *
Powers succeeds in engaging both head and heart. And through its central story of bereavement, this novel of parenting and the environment becomes a multifaceted exploration of mortality * Economist *
It is a thoughtful exploration of individual grief, a study in empathy for the biosphere, a questioning of the medical profession's pathologising of children and a beginner's guide to eco-biology... Bewilderment is both cerebral and heartfelt, a rigorous and damning assessment of the state of the world today. A call to arms for empathy and action * Irish Times *
Utterly absorbing * Daily Mail *
One of our most lavishly gifted writers * New Yorker *
Nothing less than brilliant -- John Updike
It's not possible for Powers to write an uninteresting book -- Margaret Atwood
With its first few pages, Powers' novel completely captivated us and with its last, it bowled us over. Powers creates a texture and specificity to our future that feels simultaneously sweepingly large and breathtakingly intimate, told through the most relatable point of view: the ferocious love of a parent for his child and his struggle to provide him a better tomorrow. -- Leigh Kittay, Black Bear's Head of Film
On The Overstory: It changed how I thought about the Earth and our place in it . . . It changed how I see things and that's always, for me, a mark of a book worth reading. -- Barack Obama
On The Overstory: Really, just one of the best novels, period -- Ann Patchett
On The Overstory: Monumental . . . breath-taking . . . a gigantic fable of genuine truths -- Barbara Kingsolver
On The Overstory: Exhilarating . . . on almost every page you will find sentences that combine precision and vision * The Times *
On The Overstory: The best book I've read in ten years. A remarkable piece of literature -- Emma Thompson
On The Overstory: An extraordinary novel . . . an astonishing performance . . . he is incredibly good at turning science into poetry * Guardian *
The success of the story - and a success it is - comes not from the ingenious scientific speculations, nor the shrewd literary connections (on the "emotional telepathy" of a work of art, or Daniel Keyes's Flowers for Algernon), but the human story between father and son, as Theo finds out 'how my brain learns to resemble what it loves * The Critic *
Richard Powers's Booker Prize-shortlisted novel is both brutal and heartwarming, intimate and profound. A masterfully curated story of love, grief and loneliness, quietly building to an inevitable and devastating close * Press Association *
He composes some of the most beautiful sentences I've ever read. I'm in awe of his talent -- Oprah Winfrey

Richard Powers has published thirteen novels. He is a MacArthur Fellow and received the National Book Award. His most recent book, The Overstory, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He lives in the Great Smoky Mountains.