Son of Nobody

by Yann Martel

Narrated by Aaron Willis; Robin Wilcock

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Pub Date 2 Apr 2026 | Archive Date 16 Apr 2026

Bolinda Audio

General Fiction (Adult) | Literary Fiction

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Description

From the author of the #1 international bestseller Life of Pi, a brilliant and moving novel connecting the lives of a Trojan War foot soldier with a scholar struggling to make sense of his life in modern-day Oxford.

'The past is never done with – always the song continues.'

Harlow Donne has sacrificed his life to the study of the classical world. So when he is invited to Oxford University to work on an obscure collection of papyrus fragments, it is an academic's dream come true. He must leave behind his daughter and wife in Canada, but offers like this don't come twice and he badly needs a change of fortune. Then, while studying in the Bodleian Library, he unearths a completely undiscovered account of the Trojan War, a glimpse into the founding of Western civilisation itself. He names the poem The Psoad, after its protagonist, a commoner identified only as Psoas, the son of nobody.

As sole translator and author of The Psoad, Harlow dedicates the poem and its footnotes to his daughter Helen, allowing the text to unlock the echoes of the ancient Greeks into the present day, and to share a personal message with his beloved child. Despite the 2000-year gap between the two, one thread hasn't frayed: the universal song of homesickness and regret, of ambition, love and grief.

From the author of the #1 international bestseller Life of Pi, a brilliant and moving novel connecting the lives of a Trojan War foot soldier with a scholar struggling to make sense of his life in...

Advance Praise

"A classical scholar uncovers a lost account of the Trojan war. The translated poem unfolds at the top of the page, with heartfelt footnotes addressed to his young daughter below, in a meditation on mythmaking, homemaking and storytelling" -- BOOKS TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2026 ― Guardian

"The first novel in a decade from the author of Life of Pi. A fictional Homeric epic about an overlooked Trojan hero is interspersed with footnotes from failing academic Harlow Donne, who translates the poem for the daughter he has left behind" -- 2026 FICTION HIGHLIGHTS ― Observer

"The 2002 Man Booker Prize-winning author of Life of Pi retells the Trojan war by placing at its centre Psoas of Midea, a goatherd's son and subject of The Psoad, a 3,000-year-old epic that has been rediscovered by a Canadian academic" -- WHAT TO READ IN 2026 ― Financial Times

"The much-loved author of 2001's Life of Pi is back with a new novel. Known for his ability to balance intricate narratives with epic stories philosophical questioning, Martel's Son of Nobody connects the lives of a foot soldier in the Trojan War with an academic who has abandoned his family life for his studies. A beautiful story about what we can learn from the past when it comes to homesickness, grief, love and ambition" -- THE MOST HYPED BOOKS WE CAN'T WAIT TO READ IN 2026 ― Elle Magazine

"Yann Martel's much-loved, Booker-winning Life of Pi will be hard to match but we're intrigued by this new tale about an academic who discovers a lost account of the Trojan War with bizarre connections to his own life" -- THE READS TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN 2026 ― Times

"Martel is an original, strange and subtle thinker" -- URSULA K. LE GUIN

Available Editions

EDITION	Audiobook, Unabridged
ISBN	9781038050069
PRICE
DURATION	7 Hours, 33 Minutes

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