Annihilation
’A contemporary masterpiece’ GUARDIAN
‘Creepy and fascinating’ STEPHEN KING
‘A psycho-geograpical tour de force’ FINANCIAL TIMES
THE BASIS FOR A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE NEBULA AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL
With an introduction by Karen Joy Fowler
In Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer’s now-classic Southern Reach series, Area X has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades and nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilisation. Expedition after expedition into Area X has failed to uncover its mysteries and the true nature of its danger to the world.
Now a twelfth expedition makes the attempt, a group of four women: an anthropologist, a surveyor, a psychologist and the narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain, record all observations of their surroundings and of one another, and, above all, avoid being contaminated by Area X.
A harrowing cosmic mystery at the vanguard of eco-fiction, Annihilation has only become more pertinent to our reality ten years after its first publication.
'Powerful and echoing' NEW STATESMAN
'Genuinely potent and dream-haunting' GUARDIAN
‘Arresting, unsettling, and unforgettable’ NEW YORKER
Jeff VanderMeer’s New York Times–bestselling Southern Reach Trilogy has been translated into more than thirty-seven languages. The first novel, Annihilation, won the Nebula Award and the Shirley Jackson Award. His other books include Hummingbird Salamander, Dead Astronauts, Borne (in development as a TV series at AMC), and The Strange Bird. VanderMeer has lectured at MIT, Yale, Vanderbilt, and Columbia. Most recently, he gave the John Hersey Memorial Address at the Key West Literary Seminar. His Florida reporting has appeared in Current Affairs, TIME, the Nation, and Esquire. VanderMeer lives in Tallahassee.