“Tender, riveting, and inventive is Clear , the newest offering and masterpiece from the brilliant Carys Davies. It will take your breath away…What a thrill.” —Sarah Jessica Parker Winner of the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, 2024 Bookmark Festival Book of the Year, and Wales Book of the Year A Vogue , The Washington Post , NPR, Kirkus Reviews , The Guardian , and The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Best Book of the Year A “daring and necessary…sophisticated and playful” ( The New York Times ) novel from an award-winning writer, Clear is the story of a minister dispatched to a remote island to “clear” its last remaining inhabitant—an unforgettable tale of resilience, change, and hope. John, an impoverished Scottish minister, has accepted a job evicting the lone remaining occupant of an island north of Scotland—Ivar, who has been living alone for decades, with only the animals and the sea for company. Though his wife, Mary, has serious misgivings about the errand, he decides to go anyway, setting in motion a chain of events that neither he nor Mary could have predicted. Shortly after John reaches the island, he falls down a cliff and is found, unconscious and badly injured, by Ivar who takes him home and tends to his wounds. “ Clear chronicles the surprising bond that develops between these two men…pack[ing] a great deal of power into a compact tale” ( The Wall Street Journal ) about connection, home, and hope—in which John begins to learn Ivar’s language, and Ivar sees himself reflected through the eyes of another person for the first time in decades. Unfolding during the final stages of the infamous Scottish Clearances—a period of the 19th century which saw whole communities of the rural poor driven off the land in a relentless program of forced evictions—this singular novel explores what binds us together in the face of insurmountable difference, the way history shapes our deepest convictions, and how the human spirit can endure despite all odds. Moving and unpredictable, “a love letter to the scorching power of language” ( The Guardian ), Clear is “a jewel of a novel” ( The Washington Post )—a profound and unforgettable read. A New York Times Book Review Top 10 Historical Fiction Book of 2024 A Vogue , Washington Post , NPR, Kirkus , and Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year Winner of the 2024 Bookmark Festival Book of Year Shortlisted for the 2024 Books Are My Bag Award, the Historical Writers’ Association Gold Crown Award, and the Saltire Society Literary Award Longlisted for Blackwell’s Book of the Year “A jewel of a new novel…It’s hard to overstate how deftly and viscerally Davies’s prose conveys this world. We see and hear and smell it, shiver with it ...I dare not give away more of this splendidly imagined story, while longing to quote from it at greater length...I found myself rereading the novel’s last pages with wonder, wanting to revisit (and reconsider) just how they unfold.” —The Washington Post “Daring and necessary...the storytelling is sophisticated and playful... Clear contemplates fictional resuscitations, opening itself, and its readers, to the ghosts of lost ideas.” —The New York Times Book Review “A love letter to the scorching power of language, a power that Davies has long understood. She writes with amazing economy: in a few words she can summon worlds…Davies is a writer of immense talent and deep humanity, capable of balancing devastating audacity with equally devastating restraint.” —The Guardian “[A] gripping novel from Welsh novelist Carys Davies, Clear ...feels a bit like a thriller set against a history lesson rendered fantastically vivid...raising questions of belonging, ownership, and how we forge the bonds between people and place that are really durable.” —Vogue “In sparse but often gorgeous prose, Clear chronicles the surprising bond that develops between these two men, first through Ivar’s tender ministrations to the injured stranger...Davies manages to pack a great deal of power into her compact tale.” —The Wall Street Journal "The most tender, beautiful story about the connection between two people and what they must overcome to find each other – in every sense of the word." —NPR “There is great pleasure to be found of Davies’s clear and calm prose, her wry asides and deep love of language, and in the book’s quiet optimism. It is a slim, masterfully carved gem of a story that you won’t easily forget: slip it into your pocket.” —Evening Standard “Davies’ characteristically nimble evocation of place is in evidence throughout…Amid the barbarity of mass evictions, with all their modern resonances, Davies ultimately offers us a story that is hopeful and humane.” —Irish Times “A lucid and stylish prose writer, Davies is excellent at revealing characters through the language they use and through the gestures and tonal shifts that betray their weaknesses, their prejudices