Annotation
"Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Along the way, Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite. Abruptly, the action jumps to Belgium in 1931, where Robert Frobisher, a disinherited bisexual composer, inveigles his way into the household of an infirm maestro who has a beguiling wife and a nubile daughter. From there we jump to the West Coast in the 1970s and a troubled reporter named Luisa Rey, who stumbles upon a web of corporate greed and murder that threatens to claim her life. And onward, to an inglorious present-day England; to a Korean superstate of the near future where neocapitalism has run amok; and, finally, to a postapocalyptic Iron Age Hawaii in the last days of history." "But the story doesn't even end there. The narrative then boomerangs back through centuries and space, returning by the same route, in reverse, to its starting point. Along the way, Mitchell reveals how his disparate characters connect, how their fates intertwine, and how their souls drift across time like clouds across the sky."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Awards
2004 New York Times Notable Books of the Year
2005 American Library Association Notable Books
2005 Galaxy British Book Awards
2004 Library Journal Best Books of the Year
Author Notes
David Mitchell's first novel, Ghostwritten, was published in 2000. It was awarded the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for the best book by a writer under thirty-five, and was short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award. His second novel, Number9Dream, followed in 2002 and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize as well as the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In 2003, David Mitchell was selected as one of the Best of Young British Novelists by Granta. He recently returned to Britain from Japan, where he spent several years, and now lives in Ireland.
Characters
| Name | Ewing, Adam |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Notary |
| Trait | American |
| Name | Frobisher, Robert |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Composer |
| Traits | English |
| Bisexual | |
| Name | Sexsmith, Rufus |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Nuclear scientist |
| Name | Rey, Luisa |
| Gender | Female |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Name | Cavendish, Timothy |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Publisher |
| Name | Sonmi-451 |
| Gender | Female |
| Occupation | Waitress |
| Traits | Genetically engineered |
| Clone | |
| Name | Zachry |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Goatherd |
| Trait | Hawaiian |
| Genre | Fiction Literary Sociological Epistolary Diary |
| Topics | Cultural conflict Human nature Abuse of power Oppression Colonialism Post-apocalyptic society Reincarnation |
| Setting | International |