Back in May, we asked you, our readers, to help choose our July Monthly Spotlight. You voted in your thousands, and the clear winner – with 44% of the vote – was Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.
It’s easy to see why: the novel was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2019, and is, without a doubt, a fan favourite. Tokarczuk – a Polish writer and activist – is one of the most critically acclaimed and influential authors of her generation. Her novel Flights, translated by Jennifer Croft, won the International Booker in 2018, and later that year she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature ‘for a narrative imagination that with encyclopaedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life’. Her work has been translated into more than 50 languages – it’s quite the résumé.
Originally published in 2009 and translated into English by Antonia Lloyd-Jones in 2018, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is set during a bleak Polish mid-winter, which may perhaps offer some readers an antidote to the current heat. It follows Janina Duszejko, an eccentric woman in her sixties, who recounts the events surrounding the disappearance of her two beloved dogs. When members of a local hunting club begin turning up dead, she becomes obsessed with the investigation. As the body count rises, Duszejko suspects something stranger is at work.
Drive Your Plow offers thought-provoking ideas on our perceptions of madness, injustices against marginalised people, animal rights, the hypocrisy of traditional religion, and predestination. It caused a genuine uproar when it was published in Poland: some critics viewed it as an attack on the country’s rural traditions and culture, and felt that it validated civil disorder in the name of environmentalism. Writing in the Guardian, Booker-longlisted author Sarah Perry described the novel ‘as a primer on the politics of vegetarianism, a dark feminist comedy, an existentialist fable and a paean to William Blake’.
Our July Monthly Spotlight includes an in-depth reading guide, an exclusive interview with the translator, a ‘where to start’ guide to the author’s best works, an extract from the opening chapter, and the chance to win one of five copies of the novel, along with a brand new, money-can’t-buy, limited-edition Booker Prizes tote bag.
For Tokarczuk, every book presents an opportunity to experiment with genre and point of view. She plays with the conventions of horror, mystery, historical epic, travelogue, and even illustrated books. At the same time, she seeks to expand the capacities of her narrators, to break through the limits of the first- and third-person points of view, and to achieve tenderness, ‘a way of looking that shows the world as being alive and interconnected’.
Tokarczuk is one of the most critically acclaimed and distinctive voices in contemporary literature, and if you’re new to her work, here’s our guide to the 2018 International Booker Prize-winner’s genre-defying fiction.
‘I think of Drive Your Plow as a self-help guide: How to Get Away with Murder, and how could any translator resist that?’ says Antonia Lloyd-Jones. ‘Although Jenny Croft and Olga Tokarczuk had already won the International Booker Prize for Flights, Olga decided I should translate Plow (as we tend to call it) because she and I, exactly the same age, are rapidly evolving into full-blooded Janina Duszejkos. I fund-raise for animal charities, I live alone with my cat, I have all the symptoms. It’s a superbly written book that I knew I would enjoy translating.’
‘I. NOW PAY ATTENTION
Once meek, and in a perilous path,
The just man kept his course along
The vale of death.
I am already at an age and additionally in a state where I must always wash my feet thoroughly before bed, in the event of having to be removed by an ambulance in the Night.
Had I examined the Ephemerides that evening to see what was happening in the sky, I wouldn’t have gone to bed at all. Meanwhile I had fallen very fast asleep; I had helped myself with an infusion of hops, and I also took two valerian pills. So when I was woken in the middle of the Night by hammering on the door – violent, immoderate and thus ill-omened – I was unable to come round.’
With its blend of noir, wit, and moral ambiguity, Tokarczuk’s novel of ideas draws readers through a maze of uncertainty, toward a final, unsettling revelation.
Whether you’re discovering Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead for the first time or returning to it, here is our comprehensive guide, featuring insights from critics, our judges and the book’s author and translator, as well as discussion points and suggestions for further reading.
We’re offering you the chance to win a copy of the book and a limited-edition Booker Prizes tote bag. The new totes feature illustrations by Bill Rebholz and are not available to buy anywhere.
To be in with a chance of winning, simply enter your details on the Booker Prizes website by 12:00 BST on Friday, 31 July 2026. This competition is open to readers anywhere in the world.
Are you a fan of Olga Tokarczuk’s work? Let us know if you’ll be reading along with us at Booker HQ this month, in the comments below!
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