The archive
Two Nobel laureates, a double Booker winner, a double Pulitzer winner, and books that have sold in the millions across dozens of languages. Every one of them has an episode where the author talks about how the thing was actually built.
2
Nobel laureates
8
Books in the archive
20+
Major prizes between them
#1 in the archive · Fourth Estate, 2006
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Adapted for film in 2013; named the best book to have won the Women's Prize in its first 25 years.
Over 1 million copies
Historical Fiction · Literary Fiction · African Literature
#2 in the archive · Faber & Faber, 1989
Kazuo Ishiguro
Booker Prize winner, 1989; filmed by Merchant Ivory with eight Academy Award nominations.
Over 1 million copies in the UK alone
Literary Fiction · Historical Fiction
#3 in the archive · McClelland & Stewart, 2000
Margaret Atwood
Booker Prize winner, 2000. Atwood is one of only a handful of writers to win the Booker twice.
Millions of copies worldwide
Dystopian Fiction · Speculative Fiction · Literary Fiction
#4 in the archive · Doubleday, 2016
Colson Whitehead
Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner; adapted into a ten-part series by Barry Jenkins.
Over 1.5 million copies
Historical Fiction · Literary Fiction
#5 in the archive · Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2007
Olga Tokarczuk
International Booker Prize winner, 2018, translated by Jennifer Croft; Nobel Prize in Literature, 2018.
Translated into more than 40 languages
Translated Fiction · Historical Fiction · Literary Fiction
#6 in the archive · Hamish Hamilton, 2019
Bernardine Evaristo
Booker Prize winner, 2019 — the first Black woman to win the prize in its history.
Over 1 million copies in the UK
Literary Fiction · Verse Novel
#7 in the archive · Penguin Press, 2019
Ocean Vuong
A million-plus copies in print across formats; adapted for film in 2025.
New York Times bestseller, 2019
Autofiction · Literary Fiction · Poetry
#8 in the archive · Grand Central, 2017
Min Jin Lee
National Book Award finalist; adapted into an award-winning Apple TV+ series in Korean, Japanese and English.
Over 2 million copies
Historical Fiction · Family Saga · East Asian Literature
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