A new novel by Naomi Alderman, known for her 2017 bestseller, The Power, is coming next year.
Simon & Schuster will publish The Future in the fall of 2023, the press announced in a news release. It describes the book as “a tour de force of intelligence and storytelling, marrying white-knuckle narrative propulsion with an intellectually dazzling critique of the world we have made, in which a few billionaires profit on the lives of many and lead us willingly to our doom.”
Alderman made her literary debut in 2006 with the novel Disobedience, which won the Orange Award for New Writers; her other novels include The Lessons and The Liars’ Gospel.
The Power made her a literary sensation. The novel, about a world in which girls and women are able to shoot electricity from their fingertips, drew critical acclaim; in a starred review, a Kirkus writer called it “very smart and very entertaining.” The novel won the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and was praised by Barack Obama.
A television series based on the novel is in the works, with Toni Collette and Josh Charles starring.
Alderman says The Future is “a novel which has almost been dictated to me by the roiling urgency of the world today—the opportunity and the despair, the great hopes and the terrible fears.”
“I’ve always believed that the novel can ‘bring the news,’” she said. “So that’s what I’m hoping to do: to sketch a way forward from where we are now. With explosions. And drone swarms. And a love story.”
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
