Station Eleven

An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity. 

A National Book Award Finalist
A PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist

Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end.

Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and they have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band’s existence. And as the story takes off, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, the strange twist of fate that connects them all will be revealed.

Look for Emily St. John Mandel's new novel, The Glass Hotel, available now.

Genre: Science Fiction

"Station Eleven is a firework of a novel. Elegantly constructed and packed with explosive beauty, it's full of life and humanity and the aftershock of memory." - Lauren Beukes

"Disturbing, inventive and exciting, Station Eleven left me wistful for a world where I still live." - Jessie Burton

"Best novel. The big one . . . stands above all the others . . . beautifully written, and wonderfully elegiac, a book that I will long remember, and return to." - George R R Martin

"A haunting tale of art and the apocalypse. Station Eleven is an unmissable experience." - Samantha Shannon

"Station Eleven is the kind of book that speaks to dozens of the readers in me - the Hollywood devotee, the comic book fan, the cult junkie, the love lover, the disaster tourist. It is a brilliant novel, and Emily St John Mandel is astonishing." - Emma Straub