Inglorious

When Rosa Lane, a promising young journalist, impulsively hits the send button on an email to her boss saying “I quit,” so begins her pursuit of enlightenment in the jungles of cutthroat London. As she embarks upon her quest for a sense of purpose, she is deceived by her lover, surprised by her friends, turned out by her roommate, threatened by her bank manager, picked over by prospective employers, and tormented by all the bizarre expectations of the modern world. An erudite and darkly comic novel, brimming with lacerating wit and compassion, Inglorious is a truly engrossing character study of a woman walking the edge between self-destruction and self-discovery.

Joanna Kavenna’s first novel, Inglorious, received the prestigious Orange Award for debut fiction, while The Ice Museum, a work of travel writing, was short-listed for the Ondaatje Prize. Kavenna’s writing has appeared in The New York Review of Books, The Guardian, and The Times Literary Supplement, among other publications. She lives in Oxford, England.