Description

DATE OF RELEASE: 2 APR 2026
The past is never done with: always the song continues Harlow Donne has devoted his life to the Classical world. When a chance comes up to study an obscure collection of papyrus fragments at Oxford University, he seizes it. Though it means leaving his daughter and fracturing marriage back home in Canada, this is the kind of career break he desperately needs.

In the depths of the Bodleian Library, Harlow discovers a lost account of the Trojan War, a glimpse into the founding of Western civilization itself. He names the epic poem The Psoad, after its protagonist, a Greek commoner identified as Psoas of Midea but known to all as 'son of nobody'. As sole translator and interpreter of the Psoad, Harlow dedicates the poem and its footnotes to his daughter, Helen.

Under his gaze, the text unlocks echoes of Ancient Greece into the present day, and a personal message to his beloved child appears. Despite the three-thousand-year gap between the two, a thread hasn't frayed: the universal song of homesickness and regret, of ambition, love and grief. In this masterpiece of myth, history and domesticity, Son of Nobody explores how stories become facts, the price we pay to share them and how we live - then, now and always.


Hardback

Publication: 2 Apr 2026, Canongate
ISBN: 9781838859077

Extent: 352 pages

Product form
  • David's Bookshop

Son of Nobody by Yann Martel

    DATE OF RELEASE: 2 APR 2026 The past is never done with: always the song continues Harlow Donne has devoted... Read more

    £20.00 £18.00

      • Guaranteed secure & safe checkout.

        shop pay

      Description

      DATE OF RELEASE: 2 APR 2026
      The past is never done with: always the song continues Harlow Donne has devoted his life to the Classical world. When a chance comes up to study an obscure collection of papyrus fragments at Oxford University, he seizes it. Though it means leaving his daughter and fracturing marriage back home in Canada, this is the kind of career break he desperately needs.

      In the depths of the Bodleian Library, Harlow discovers a lost account of the Trojan War, a glimpse into the founding of Western civilization itself. He names the epic poem The Psoad, after its protagonist, a Greek commoner identified as Psoas of Midea but known to all as 'son of nobody'. As sole translator and interpreter of the Psoad, Harlow dedicates the poem and its footnotes to his daughter, Helen.

      Under his gaze, the text unlocks echoes of Ancient Greece into the present day, and a personal message to his beloved child appears. Despite the three-thousand-year gap between the two, a thread hasn't frayed: the universal song of homesickness and regret, of ambition, love and grief. In this masterpiece of myth, history and domesticity, Son of Nobody explores how stories become facts, the price we pay to share them and how we live - then, now and always.


      Hardback

      Publication: 2 Apr 2026, Canongate
      ISBN: 9781838859077

      Extent: 352 pages

      Login

      Forgot your password?

      Don't have an account yet?
      Create account