From the International Booker Prize-winning translator and Women-s Prize finalist, a propulsive, beguiling novel about eight translators and their search for a world-renowned author who goes missing. Eight translators arrive at a house in a forest on the border of Belarus. It belongs to the writer Irena Rey, and they are there to translate her magnum opus, Grey Eminence. But within days of their arrival, Irena disappears without a trace. The translators, who hail from eight different countries but share the same reverence for their beloved author, begin to investigate where she may have gone while proceeding with work on her masterpiece. They explore this ancient, wooded refuge with its intoxicating slime moulds and lichens and study her exotic belongings and layered texts for clues. But doing so reveals secrets - and deceptions - of Irena Rey-s that they are utterly unprepared for. Forced to face their differences as they grow increasingly paranoid in this fever dream of isolation and
