Universality

LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE • “A bold and memorable achievement.”—The Booker Prize 2025 judges Remember—words are your weapons, they’re your tools, your currency : a twisty, slippery descent into the rhetoric of power, hailed as “a nesting doll of satire that leaves readers uncertain where their loyalties lie” ( Financial Times ) “Original, vital, and unputdownable.”—Tess Gunty, National Book Award–winning author of The Rabbit Hutch AN NPR AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Late one night on a Yorkshire farm, in the midst of an illegal rave, a young man is nearly bludgeoned to death with a solid gold bar. An ambitious young journalist sets out to uncover the truth surrounding the attack, connecting the dots between an amoral banker landlord, an iconoclastic newspaper columnist, and a radical anarchist movement that has taken up residence on the farm. She solves the mystery, but her viral exposé raises more questions than it answers. Through a voyeuristic lens, and with a simmering power, Universality focuses on words: what we say, how we say it, and what we really mean. A thrilling novel from one of the most acclaimed young novelists working today, Universality is a compelling, unsettling celebration of the spectacular, appalling force of language. It dares you to look away.