Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

An elderly woman in a remote Polish village becomes convinced that the local hunters are being killed by the animals they have hunted. Part murder mystery, part philosophical novel, entirely Tokarczuk. The narrator, Janina, is one of the great eccentric voices in contemporary fiction — furious, tender, and completely her own.

This is a shorter, sharper entry point into Tokarczuk than Flights or The Books of Jacob — a good place to start if you’re new to her, and a pleasure to return to if you’re not. Antonia Lloyd-Jones’s translation captures Janina’s voice with real affection. The Blake epigraphs are not decorative.