From left: Scribe (US), cover design Leanne Shapton; Scribe (UK, Australia, New Zealand); Penguin Random House (Canada), Orlando (Netherlands), Czarna Owka (Poland)
SHORTLISTED FOR THE RAKUTEN KOBO EMERGING WRITER PRIZE 2019
LONGLISTED FOR THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE ONDAATJE PRIZE 2019
Semi-finalist for The Morning News Tournament of Books Best Novels from 2018
Praise for The Dictionary of Animal Languages
‘The Works of Female Surrealists Resonate Now More Than Ever,’ — T Magazine, NEW YORK TIMES, August 2018
"A must-read début novel from a new generation of author seeking to explore modern womanhood in all its multiplicity." — AnOther magazine, Six Women Writers Whose Novels Are Set To Conquer 2018
‘A work of art.’ — Irish Examiner
‘Heidi Sopinka’s début is a rare and accomplished thing. Wholly original.’ — Brixton Review of Books
‘Heidi Sopinka creates a vivid reckoning of a life in her début novel, The Dictionary of Animal Languages.’ — The Toronto Star
‘A daring début that tackles big questions.’ — The National Post
"The Dictionary of Animal Languages is such a special book, suffused with an almost painterly intelligence. Sopinka's characters experience the world with an intensity we associate with children and visionaries. Watching them navigate the difficulties of the humdrum and the glamorous both is a distinctive, if unsettling, pleasure."
—Rivka Galchen, author of Little Labors, American Innovations and Atmospheric Disturbances.
"With stunning prose, lavish details, deep wisdom, and emotional precision, reading this book is like falling in love — my interest in everything else was lost."
—Claire Cameron, author of The Last Neanderthal
"Not only a dictionary of animal language, but also an atlas of the human heart, Heidi Sopinka's gorgeous debut novel maps the difficult territory between history and memory, love and loss."
—Johanna Skibsrud, Giller Prize-winning author of The Sentimentalists and Tiger, Tiger