Masterful, Pulitzer-prize winning literary epic about the painful and complex realities of slave life on a Southern plantation. An utterly original exploration of race, trust and the cruel truths of human nature, this is a landmark in modern American literature. Henry Townsend, a black farmer, boot maker, and former slave, becomes proprietor of his own plantation - as well as his own slaves. When he dies, his widow, Caldonia, succumbs to profound grief, and things begin to fall apart: slaves take to escaping under the cover of night, and families who had once found love beneath the weight of slavery begin to betray one another. Beyond the Townsend household, the known world also unravels: low-paid white patrollers stand watch as slave 'speculators' sell free black people into slavery, and rumours of slave rebellions set white families against slaves who have served them for years. An ambitious, luminously written novel that ranges from the past to the present, The Known World seamlessly weaves together the lives of the freed and the enslaved - and allows all of us a deeper understanding of the enduring multi-dimensional world created by the institution of slavery. Lead title * Winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for fiction - following such established names as Annie Proulx, Michael Chabon and Carol Shields. * Review coverage assured across the media for the first UK release of a novel that has won one of the most prestigous literary awards in the world.

* Chosen as a Book of the Year in the Guardian and Daily Telegraph. Competition: Toni Morrison, William Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy.