Philip Pullman will conclude his Book of Dust trilogy with a new book coming later this year.
Alfred A. Knopf will publish Pullman’s The Rose Field in the fall, the press announced in a news release.
Pullman, known for the His Dark Materials trilogy of young adult fantasy novels, launched the companion Book of Dust trilogy in 2017 with La Belle Sauvage, which explored the early life of Lyra, the hero introduced in His Dark Materials. The second novel in the trilogy, The Secret Commonwealth, following Lyra after the events of His Dark Materials, was published in 2019.
The Rose Field is set directly after The Secret Commonwealth and will follow Lyra in a haunted city, searching for her beloved daemon, Pantalaimon.
“I think of The Rose Field as partly a thriller and partly a bildungsroman: a story of psychological, moral, and emotional growth,” Pullman said in a statement. “But it’s also a vision. Lyra’s world is changing, just as ours is.…I hope that fundamentally and permanently The Rose Field will be read as a story. I think of myself [as] a storyteller rather than a novelist or a writer of literary fiction, belonging among the tellers of folk tales, fairy tales, ballads, and myths.”
The Rose Field is scheduled for publication on Oct. 23.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
