An assured, sweeping debut about life, love and science with language like postmodern fireworks. With echoes of Diana Gabaldon, and H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine, a must-read for David Mitchell fans.

Coco Kafka and her colleague Chang are nearing a scientific breakthrough: they are about to find a cure for blindness. Their Russian rivals Popov and Karpov are hot on their heels: the race against time is on. But who’s playing tricks on whom? where will the poisonous cholera toxin end up? who stole the priceless Manet painting? and where in time and space is the mysterious Mrs. Sagiv now travelling?

The Amazing Life and Times of Coco Kafka is an abundant and mischievous debut about the unseeing and the seeing, of metamorphoses and crisscrossing realities, and of epic love.