'Wonderful and necessary' ANNE ENRIGHT ~ 'Constantly surprising' GUARDIAN ~ 'Stunning' DEBORAH LEVY ~ 'Compulsively fascinating' NEW STATESMAN ~ 'Beautiful' HANYA YANAGIHARA ~ 'Daring and seductive NEW YORK TIMES ~ 'Profound, unclassifiable' GARTH GREENWELL ~ 'Exhilarating' INDEPENDENT ~ 'Continually unexpected' PETER CAREY ~ 'Triumphant' TELEGRAPH ~ 'Luminously wise' HELEN MACDONALD ~ 'Unusually brave' THE TIMES

When Olivia Laing moved to New York City in her mid-thirties, she found herself inhabiting loneliness on a daily basis. Increasingly fascinated by this most shameful of experiences, she began to explore the lonely city by way of some of its most compelling artists, illuminating loneliness in a whole new light.

The Lonely City is a celebration of that strange and lovely state, intrinsic to the very act of being alive. Hailed as 'a new kind of literature' when it was first published and selling over two hundred thousand copies, Olivia Laing's dazzling book has been beloved by readers all over the world. Now, in this tenth anniversary edition, Laing reflects in a new afterword on how our experience of loneliness has changed over the course of a difficult decade.

Prizes

Short-listed for Gordon Burn Prize 2016 (UK)

Triumphant . . . A brave writer whose books open up fundamental questions about life and art * * Telegraph * *
Luminously wise and deeply compassionate . . . A fierce and essential work -- HELEN MACDONALD, author of H IS FOR HAWK
Wonderfully freewheeling . . . Constantly surprising . . . Inspired * * Guardian * *
Stunning . . . Laing has written a classic that will be cherished for years to come -- DEBORAH LEVY, author of SWIMMING HOME
Endlessly, compulsively fascinating * * New Statesman * *
Unusually brave . . . Sublime * * The Times * *
Laing cuts close to the bone of a universal yet often unrelatable state * * Financial Times * *
A gifted critic and biographer . . . a fascinating, eerie piece of writing * * Sunday Times * *
One of the finest writers of the new non-fiction . . . Compelling and original * * Harpers Bazaar * *
Exhilarating . . . beautifully integrated, original, compassionate * * Independent * *

Olivia Laing is an internationally acclaimed writer and critic. They're the author of eight books, including Funny Weather, Everybody and the Sunday Times number one bestseller The Garden Against Time. Laing's first novel, Crudo, won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and in 2018 they were awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize for non-fiction. They're an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Arts and their books have been translated into twenty-one languages. Their latest novel is The Silver Book.

@olivialanguage | olivialaing.com