The New York Times profiles A.S. Byatt and published an excerpt from A.S. Byatt’s new novel, The Children’s Book, which was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize awarded on Tuesday. “Easily the best thing AS Byatt has written since her Booker-winning masterpiece, Possession,” wrote the Sunday Times of London.

From the excerpt in the New York Times:

The passage opened into a dusty vault, crammed with a crowd of white effigies, men, women and children, staring out with sightless eyes. Tom thought they might be prisoners in the underworld, or even the damned. They were closely packed; the boys had to worm their way between them. Beyond this funereal chamber, two corridors branched. There was more light to the left, so they went that way, negotiated another unlocked grille, and found themselves in a treasure-house of vast gold and silver vessels, croziers, eagle-winged lecterns, fountains, soaring angels and grinning cherubs. “Electrotypes,” whispered the knowledgeable Julian. A faint but steady light rippled over the metal, through little glass roundels let into the brickwork. Julian put his finger to his lips and hissed to Tom to keep still. Tom steadied himself against a silver galleon, which clanged. He sneezed.

“Don’t do that.”

Join Byatt Oct 29 at 92Y when she reads from The Children’s Book. And check out Maud Newton’s review of the novel, and a fantastic interview with A.S. Byatt at Bookforum.

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