Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead cover art

Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 Months Free

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Get this deal
Offer ends on 15 July 2026 at 11:59 BST.
More purchase options

Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead

By: Olga Tokarczuk
Narrated by: Antonia Lloyd-Jones
Get this deal

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £13.27

Buy Now for £13.27

With Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead, Man Booker International Prize-winner Olga Tokarczuk returns with a subversive, entertaining noir novel.

In a remote Polish village, Janina Duszejko, an eccentric woman in her 60s, recounts the events surrounding the disappearance of her two dogs. She is reclusive, preferring the company of animals to people; she’s unconventional, believing in the stars; and she is fond of the poetry of William Blake, from whose work the title of the book is taken.

When members of a local hunting club are found murdered, Duszejko becomes involved in the investigation. By no means a conventional crime story, this existential thriller by ‘one of Europe’s major humanist writers’ (Guardian) offers thought-provoking ideas on our perceptions of madness, injustice against marginalized people, animal rights, the hypocrisy of traditional religion, belief in predestination - and caused a genuine political uproar in Tokarczuk’s native Poland.

©2020 Olga Tokarczuk (P)2021 Fitzcarraldo Editions Crime Fiction International Mystery & Crime Mystery Women Sleuths Women's Fiction Fiction Detective Crime
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
All stars
Most relevant
With a remote snowbound location on the Czech-Polish border and a handful of awkward misfit characters Tokarczuk weaves a spellbinding tale, toying with crime fiction, magical realism, feminist literature and the poetry of William Blake. Pity the poor librarian who must figure out which shelf this belongs on.

In her protagonist Janina, she gives voice to an otherwise invisible person, a woman, late in life, ignored by authority, with no status, but who in return, guided by her own mysticism ignores the rules and ploughs her own furrow using her invisible footsteps in the snow to solve, or possibly commit a crime.

This crisp and luminous translation by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, who also narrates beautifully here, surely helped cement Togarchuk’s international literary reputation.

Narrating a character that is eccentric, unreliable, sometimes admirable and sometimes downright unlikeable, is a tough call, but as Blake avers “Without contraries is no progression”; this is such a well paced and intelligent reading. I had already read the book and had not planned to download the audio version, but was enticed to listen to this recording by the preview. What comes out in this wonderful reading is the warmth and humour of the novel. I liked all the characters a lot more after this as they seemed to acquire a life of their own, and live on after the words were done.

A beautiful, intelligent narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I must contradict the previous reviews with regard to narration, I personally think it perfectly fits the character. The translator has done excellent job in both: translating and narrating.
As for the story itself, it's vividly written, with enjoyable humour. It's dark, at moments disgusting, sometimes slightly boring, but it's all there for a reason, you must listen it till the end!

excellent versatile story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
As a Pole, I was reluctant to listen to Tokarczuk in English, but the translation turned to be very good and the performance of the narrator is very good. She ia a true Duszejko. This audiobook works on many levels!

A lovely surprise

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Surrender any expectations of what you like. Meet the story and narration on their own terms and by the end you will love it.

Surrender to it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I really enjoyed this book. It gave me a sense of living in Eastern Europe, the cold, the environment and living a simple life close to nature. Throw in a murder mystery and you have a very readable book. Lots of food for thought including plenty of William Blake quotes.

Something different

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews