South

B is a journalist sent to the South of an unnamed desert country on a mysterious assignment: to write a report on recent strikes at an offshore oil rig. From the start of his journey he meets a harsh, ruined landscape marked by drought and decay. The people he encounters include villagers who believe in evil winds and spirits, and officials more concerned with manipulation and censorship than with the truth.

While B tries to protect himself from enemies he cannot identify, the story also opens onto his private life. We learn of his father's disappearance, the fading of his love for his wife, and his meeting with a woman he does not know.

South is a hallucinatory novel built like a puzzle, set in a world under totalitarian rule. It follows one person's search for truth, agency and understanding, and explores surveillance, alienation and guilt, asking what forces control our lives.