The Ministry of Time

One of the 18 best novels of the year for the Sunday Times

A book of the year for the New York Times, Guardian, Independent, Evening Standard, Spectator, Red, NPR, Vanity Fair, People, Slate, Advocate, Sydney Morning Herald, Globe and Mail, Den of Geek, Good Housekeeping, Goodreads, NetGalley and Smithsonian Magazine

A civil servant is offered a lucrative job in a mysterious new government ministry gathering 'expats' from across history to test whether time-travel is feasible.

Her role is to work as a 'bridge': living with, supporting and monitoring expat '1847' - Commander Graham Gore, a former Victorian polar explorer. Gore, an adventurer by trade, soon adjusts to this bizarre new world of washing machines, feminism and Spotify; and during a long, sultry summer the pair move from awkwardness to friendship to something more.

But as the true shape of the project that brought them together begins to emerge, Gore and the bridge are forced to confront their past choices and imagined futures. Can love triumph over the histories that have shaped them? And how do you defy that history when it is living in your house?

About the Author

Kaliane Bradley is a British-Cambodian writer and editor based in London. Her short stories have appeared in Electric Literature, Catapult, Somesuch Stories and The Willowherb Review , among others. She was the winner of the 2022 Harper's Bazaar Short Story Prize and the 2022 V. S. Pritchett Short Story Prize.

Her debut novel, The Ministry of Time, was an instant Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller and a global sensation. It was chosen as one of the Observer's 'Best Debut Novels of 2024' and was a Barack Obama summer pick; it was shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize, a Books Are My Bag award, the Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction and the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award.