The Prisoner of Urga

'One of the most mysterious artists now at work' Colm Tóibín 'The contemporary master of the apocalypse' Susan Sontag Under a cold sun blazing in a blinding blue sky, a train pulls away from Urga and out into the Gobi desert, headed for Beijing. Aboard the train sits a traveller who, amid a Dantean spiritual crisis and dogged by questions of the most profound variety, has been compelled to run away to the heart of China. His journey, though finite, resists quantification. His destination proves even harder to define. Available now in English for the first time since its original publication in 1992, The Prisoner of Urga is an extraordinary passage through a hellacious paradise of perilous poetry.