D. J. Taylor

A complex creation myth: Alexandria, by Paul Kingsnorth, reviewed

Set in the Fens in the next millennium, this bleak novel centres on a small religious community who may be the last survivors on Earth

Paul Kingsnorth. Credit: Getty Images 
issue 20 February 2021
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  • Alexandria

    Paul Kingsnorth

    Faber, pp. 393, £16

‘Challenging stuff,’ my wife remarked, having alighted on the page of Paul Kingsnorth’s new novel in which a character named el supplies several stream-of-consciousness paragraphs about a ritual dance featuring ‘big Birds runnin round Pole and fyr and mam and mother and all womyn and these big things all hummin’.

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