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The Delusions
  • Published: 19 April 2026
  • ISBN: 9781529153095
  • Imprint: Hutchinson Heinemann
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $60.00

The Delusions

Formats & editions
EBook
19 Mar 2026
Audiobook
19 Mar 2026
Hardback
19 Apr 2026
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The new novel from the prize-winning author of The Panopticon, Luckenbooth and Ootlin

THE BOLD NEW NOVEL FROM THE PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE PANOPTICON, LUCKENBOOTH AND OOTLIN

'1984 for the afterlife' Irvine Welsh
'Outstanding' Lemn Sissay
'Awe-inspiring' Kirstin Innes
'Bold and brilliant' Jess Kidd
'Wholly wondrous' Niall Griffiths

Edi is facing a disciplinary since her 'incident' at work. Forty-seven years in Admin processing the newly dead is not how she foresaw eternity.

In Arrivals, the newly dead must take the stages in order: first, extract delusion; second, answer HR's questionnaire truthfully. Yet who among them can truly face who they are? Who may never pass at all? As leaderboard numbers begin to rise at unprecedented rates, rumours begin to fly. Humans are about to become a banned race. The earth is going to be repossessed.

As chaos descends, Edi hopes this might finally be the moment she has waited for, so she might see her son again who she was forced to leave on Earth when she died. Edi wants to be the one waiting for him, even if HR protocols forbid it. Looking out at the millions of newly dead arriving, Edi has one question - what might any of us truly be willing to do for those we love at the doors of eternity?

Against a spectacular backdrop of stars, constellations and comets, a mass extinction event begins to unfurl watched by the entire universe as Processing, the largest soul terminus in existence, decides it is now time to take matters wholly back into its own hands. With reflections on love, defiance and light, The Delusions is a story of profound human connection, on an unprecedented scale.

Praise for Jenni Fagan

'Fagan's writing is poetic, high-octane, arresting' Sunday Times
'She writes unlike any other author of her generation' The Scotsman
'One of our most exceptional writers' Adelle Stripe
  • Published: 19 April 2026
  • ISBN: 9781529153095
  • Imprint: Hutchinson Heinemann
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $60.00
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About the author

Jenni Fagan

Jenni Fagan was born in Scotland. She graduated from Greenwich University and won a scholarship to the Royal Holloway MFA programme. She is currently completing her PhD at the University of Edinburgh. A published poet and novelist, she has won awards from Creative Scotland, Dewar Arts and Scottish Screen among others, and has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Jenni was selected as one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists after the publication of her debut novel, The Panopticon, which was shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and the James Tait Black Prize. Her adaptation of The Panopticon was staged by the National Theatre of Scotland to great acclaim. The Sunlight Pilgrims, her second novel, was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Encore Award and the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year Award, and saw her win Scottish Author of the Year at the Herald Culture Awards. She lives in Edinburgh with her son.

JF

Also by Jenni Fagan

Ootlin
Luckenbooth
The Sunlight Pilgrims
The Panopticon
See all

Praise for The Delusions

Brilliant, original, daring, a 1984 for the afterlife and a fabulous satire. It really makes you think about what it means to be human.

Irvine Welsh

What a tumultuous talent Jenni Fagan is. A despair with and a deep love for the human race drives this curious, unclassifiable and wholly wondrous story of functionaries caught up in a cosmic bureaucracy. Here is resilience, empathy, great humour, and an abiding pity for all life on Earth in all its fuss, muck, glory and terrible fragility. I am improved for having read it. The world is improved for including it.

Niall Griffiths

Jenni Fagan is an outstanding writer of the highest order. I wish I could write the way she does. Read The Delusions and bathe in her imagination and then read everything she has ever written. ... She is brilliant.

Lemn Sissay

The Delusions is beautiful, angry and awe-inspiring in the breadth of its scope and ambitions. This novel will stay with me for a very long time. It got under my skin from the very first chapter and I read it obsessively. Jenni Fagan is doing things other authors can't even dream of and we're so lucky to have her books in the world.

Kirstin Innes

Bold and brilliant, poignant and profound, Jenni Fagan imagines an afterlife for our self- and mass-deluded time. Fagan's novel is as moving as it is funny and has resonated with this reader long after the last page turned.

Jess Kidd