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The Unit
  • Published: 18 July 2017
  • ISBN: 9781590519271
  • Imprint: Other Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $32.99

The Unit

A Novel

Formats & editions
EBook
9 June 2009
Paperback
18 July 2017
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Called "riveting" by Margaret Atwood upon its first English publication in 2009, The Unit is especially relevant to the political and ethical moment we find ourselves in today.

"I enjoyed The Unit very much...I know you will be riveted, as I was." —Margaret Atwood on Twitter

A modern day classic and a chilling cautionary tale for fans of The Handmaid's Tale. Named a BEST BOOK OF THE MONTH by GQ.

“Echoing work by Marge Piercy and Margaret Atwood, The Unit is as thought-provoking as it is compulsively readable.” —Jessica Crispin, NPR.org

Ninni Holmqvist’s uncanny dystopian novel envisions a society in the not-so-distant future, where women over fifty and men over sixty who are unmarried and childless are sent to a retirement community called the Unit. They’re given lavish apartments set amongst beautiful gardens and state-of-the-art facilities; they’re fed elaborate gourmet meals, surrounded by others just like them. It’s an idyllic place, but there’s a catch: the residents—known as dispensables—must donate their organs, one by one, until the final donation. When Dorrit Weger arrives at the Unit, she resigns herself to this fate, seeking only peace in her final days. But she soon falls in love, and this unexpected, improbable happiness throws the future into doubt.
  • Published: 18 July 2017
  • ISBN: 9781590519271
  • Imprint: Other Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $32.99
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About the authors

Marlaine Delargy

Marlaine Delargy has translated novels by John Ajvide Lindqvist, Kristina Ohlsson, and Helene Tursten, as well as The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist (Other Press) and Therese Bohman’s Drowned (Other Press). She lives in England.
MD

Praise for The Unit

"A haunting, deadpan tale set vaguely in the Scandinavian future...Holmqvist's spare prose interweaves the Unit's pleasures and cruelties with exquisite matter-of-factness...[Holmqvist] turns the screw, presenting a set of events so miraculous and abominable that they literally made me gasp." --Washington Post

"Echoing work by Marge Piercy and Margaret Atwood, The Unit is as thought-provoking as it is compulsively readable." --Jessa Crispin, NPR.org

"This haunting first novel imagines a nation in which men and women who haven't had children by a certain age are taken to a 'reserve bank unit for biological material' and subjected to various physical and psychological experiments, while waiting to have their organs harvested for 'needed' citizens in the outside world... Holmqvist evocatively details the experiences of a woman who falls in love with another resident, and at least momentarily attempts to escape her fate." --New Yorker

"Orwellian horrors in a Xanadu on Xanax--creepily profound and most provocative." --Kirkus Reviews