Ingenious Pain

Get in the xigxag app

Listen to a sample

What to expect

The extraordinary prize-winning debut from Andrew Miller. Winner of the IMPAC Award and James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

At the dawn of the Enlightenment, James Dyer is born unable to feel pain. A source of wonder and scientific curiosity as a child, he rises through the ranks of Georgian society to become a brilliant surgeon. Yet as a human being he fails, for he can no more feel love and compassion than pain. Until, en route to St Petersburg to inoculate the Empress Catherine against smallpox, he meets his nemesis and saviour.

(P)2019 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Critics Review

  • A dazzling debut

    Observer

  • A really remarkable first novel … Miller’s narrative is gripping and his imagination extraordinary

    Sunday Telegraph

  • An extraordinary first novel

    The New York Times Book Review

  • Exceptionally intelligent and elegant … remarkable for its feeling and its humane sensibility

    The Sunday Times

  • Funny, tender and exhilarating. It is something very rare in modern fiction, a true work of art

    Spectator

  • Astoundingly good

    The Times

More from the same

Author

Narrator

Subscribe to our newsletter

Sign up to get tailored content recommendations, product updates and info on new releases. Your data is your own: we commit to protect your data and respect your privacy.