Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

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Piranesi by Susanna Clarke: Episode 1

Episode 9

Episode 1

BBC Radio 4 - Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, Episode 1

Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has. Winner of the Women's Prize 2021.

Piranesi witnesses the joining of three tides and introduces us to the inhabitants of the House.

Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has. 

In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls. On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend, the Other. At other times he brings tributes of food to the Dead. But mostly, he is alone.

Messages begin to appear, scratched out in chalk on the pavements. There is someone new in the House. But who are they and what do they want? Are they a friend or do they bring destruction and madness as the Other claims? Lost texts must be found; secrets must be uncovered. The world that Piranesi thought he knew is becoming strange and dangerous.

The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.

Susanna Clarke's debut novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, sold more than 4m copies and was adapted for BBC television in 2015. In Piranesi, her long-awaited second novel, we are back in dreamlike, gothic territory. Piranesi was shortlisted for the Costa Novel of the Year Award, the RSL Encore Award and won the Women's Prize for Fiction 2021.

Read by Samuel Anderson
Abridged by Sara Davies
Original music by Timothy X Atack
Produced in Bristol by Alison Crawford for BBC Audio

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