Universality

A Novel

De: Natasha Brown

Narrado por: Norma Butikofer, Anushka Chakravarti, Clvare Corbett, Daniel Weyman

Remember—words are your weapons, they’re your tools, your currency: a twisty, slippery descent into the rhetoric of truth and power from a writer who “brilliantly illuminates the entrenched inequalities of our time” (The Guardian).

Named one of 2025's Most Anticipated Releases by The Times • Literary Hub • ELLE (UK) • The Guardian • Harper's BAZAAR • BBC

Late one night on a Yorkshire farm, in the midst of an illegal rave, a young man is nearly bludgeoned to death with a solid gold bar.

An ambitious young journalist sets out to uncover the truth surrounding the attack, connecting the dots between an amoral banker landlord, an iconoclastic columnist, and a radical anarchist movement that has taken up residence on the farm. She solves the mystery, but her viral exposé raises more questions than it answers, namely: Who wrote it? Why? And how much of it is true? Through a voyeuristic lens, and with a simmering power, Universality focuses in on words: what we say, how we say it, and what we really mean.

The thrilling new novel from one of the most acclaimed and incisive young novelists working today, Universality is a compelling, unsettling celebration of the spectacular, appalling force of language. It dares you to look away.©2025 Natasha Brown (P)2025 Knopf Canada

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Ambitious and stimulating . . . Brown’s narrative is less concerned with the crime than with astutely portraying the thorny, complex ways that class and race seep into news, information, and language itself—and how they can be utilized for personal gain. . . . A dizzying and fascinating tale.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Terse, elegant and prompt, Universality holds up a mirror to Britain by examining, through slapstick violence and media parody, the 'social fragility' exposed by the financial crash and the pandemic, exploited by tergiversating populists weaponising a deliberate misdefinition of wokeness for 'clicks and shares'. Another sharp serve from a brilliant mind." —Paul Mendez, author of Rainbow Milk

"A breathtaking talent—Natasha Brown is probably my favourite young British novelist. Universality is a precise dissection of class, wealth and power, written with a spareness that elevates and electrifies her prose. It's both intelligent and very entertaining. I didn't think Brown could better her debut, Assembly, but—improbably—she has. Utterly phenomenal." —Elizabeth Day, author of Magpie