Bright Air Black

'One of the most exciting writers at work today.' Australian

It is 13th century B.C. and aboard the ship Argo, Medea, Jason and the Argonauts make their return journey across the Black Sea from Persia's Colchis, in possession of the Golden Fleece.

David Vann, in brilliant poetic prose, gives us a nuanced and electric portrait of one of Greek mythology's most fascinating and notorious figures, Medea; an ancient tale reimagined through the eyes of the woman often cast as sorceress and monster.

Atmospheric and spellbinding, Bright Air Black is an indispensable and provocative take on one of our earliest texts and the most intimate and corporal version of Medea's story ever told.

Slaying her brother, destroying her father. These are acts of a god, acts that inspire fear and form myth. Gods do what cannot be done. And a woman can become a god more easily than a man because she is not allowed anything. She can become a thing of fear.

David Vann is an internationally bestselling author published in twenty-one languages. He is the winner of fifteen prizes and his books have appeared on seventy Best Books lists in a dozen countries. He is a professor at the University of Warwick in England and lives in New Zealand for half of the year.

'Vann's prose is as pure as a gulp of water from an Alaskan stream.' Financial Times

'Vann's treatment of Medea has all the gore and poetry of McCarthy's Blood Meridian...While the finale is well known, there are enough surprises in Vann's revision to maintain interest, and the story of Medea continues to resonate, as its longevity suggests, in our contemporary moment.' Saturday Paper

'Dark, visceral, lyrical, sinister, sad: David Vann's hypnotic reimagining of Greek mythology's famously fiendish Medea is masterful—the expressive style is bizarre but brilliant. This is a book for lovers of poetry, Greek mythology, or for anyone who likes their prose offbeat, magical, or unclassifiable.' Readings

'The story is a familiar one, but David Vann breathes new life into the tale, taking the reader deep into Medea's psyche. Atmospheric and poetic.' Nicki J. Markus

'Sensual and violent, often simultaneously, Vann's novel evokes the primal force of women's power.' Booklist

'Wonderfully evocative and enjoyable...A great addition to the oeuvre of Greek mythological retellings.' Randomly Yours, Alex

'Bright Air Black is a compelling study of human nature stripped to its most elemental, and a vivid addition to the many interpretations of this character, who's complexity shows no sign of losing its allure.' Guardian

'Van's choppy sentences are full of urgency and action, and the blood-soaked narrative never lacks momentum. Despite Medea's many acts of barbarity, Vann succeeds in creating a degree of sympathy for a women defiant to the end.' Big Issue

'[Vann] is the real thing—a mature, risk-taking and fantastically adept fiction writer who dares go to the darkest places, explore their most appalling corners.' Observer

'Vann is a brave writer, daring to write about and depict things that most other authors would baulk at, but that's what makes him so good—that unflinching eye for the darkness you could potentially find in any of us, given the wrong chain of events.' Independent