2018, ISBN: 9780374261597

 Signed, Brand New, First Edition, First Printing, Hardcover/Dust Jacket, List: $26.00, 291 pagesNote: The Save Africa Now logo that appears on the photo&nbs… Mehr…

 Signed, Brand New, First Edition, First Printing, Hardcover/Dust Jacket, List: $26.00, 291 pagesNote: The Save Africa Now logo that appears on the photo of the title page does NOT appear on the book.SeveranceWinner of the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award Winner of the Kirkus Prize for Fiction Winner of the VCU Cabell First Novelist AwardFinalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut NovelA New York Times Notable Book of 2018An Indie Next SelectionShortlisted for the Neukom Institute Literary Arts Award for Debut Speculative FictionbyLing MaMa's debut novel, Severance, is described as "a biting indictment of late-stage capitalism and a chilling vision of what comes after, but that doesn?t mean it?s a Marxist screed or a dry Hobbesian thought experiment." Severance is a novel that is partially post-apocalyptic horror, and partially office satire. It follows the novel's narrator in the aftermath of the outbreak of a deadly fever that has killed almost everyone in the U.S. An earlier chapter from the book won a 2015 Disquiet Literary Prize, the Graywolf Prize. Severance won a 2018 Kirkus Prize and was listed as a New York Times Notable Book of 2018 and shortlisted for the 2019 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. Ma began the novel while working as a fact checker for Playboy, a job she held from 2009 to 2012. Severance began as a short story, written in her office during her last few months there; after her layoff, it became a novel which she wrote while living on severance pay. She took four years to write it, and finished the novel at Cornell University as part of the work in her MFA program. Ma said she "felt pressured to write a traditional immigration novel" while in the MFA program at Cornell, but instead decided to write about otherness and alienation via the trope of zombie apocalypse. Ma has also published short stories in Granta, Playboy, and the Chicago Reader. Ma's short story Peking Duck appears in the 2022 The New Yorker Fiction Issue. Bliss Montage: Stories was published September 13, 2022.Severance was published on August 14, 2018.First Edition, First Printing, hand SIGNED, in my presence, to full title page.From the PEN America Awards ceremony at NYU Skirball in New York City on February 26, 2019.No inscription; full signature only.Note: I took the photos of Ling Ma on September 14, 2022.BONUSES: A copy of the PEN America Awards 2019 flier (see photo 10) + copies of six book reviews & a copy of the publisher's Reading Group Gold (see photos 11 & 12) are included.Please only bid if you will pay within five days of auction's end.All domestic sales of $25 or more will be wrapped and shipped in a box.If requested, there is a $1.00 surcharge for all domestic orders below $25 shipped in a box.Shipping & Handling for USPS Media Mail is $4.49 (includes USPS Tracking).Additional books shipped together via USPS Media Mail are $1.50 per book.Shipping & Handling for USPS Priority Mail Flat Rate envelope is $7.95 (includes USPS Tracking).Shipping & Handling for USPS Priority Mail International Flat Rate envelope is $38.95.I provide the highest quality author signed, first edition books.100% authentic guaranteed - This is my COA "Certificate of Authenticity".  I won't sell any signed book that I'm not 100% sure is hand signed by the author. I attended the PEN America Awards ceremony at NYU Skirball in New York City on February 26, 2019.I'm not happy unless you are!Please email any questions.Thanks!An NPR Best Book of 2018An Elle Best Book of 2018A Marie Claire Best Book of 2018A Buzzfeed Best Book of 2018A Refinery29 Best Book of 2018A Jezebel Favorite Book of 2018A Bustle Best Book of 2018An Electric Lit Best Novel of 2018A Lit Hub Best Book of 2018A BookPage Best Book of 2018A Bookish Best Book of 2018A Mental Floss Best Book of 2018A Chicago Review of BooksBest Book of 2018A HuffPost Best Fiction Book of 2018An Electric Literature Best Book of 2018An A.V. Club Favorite Book of 2018A Jezebel Favorite Book of 2018A Vulture Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Book of 2018Longlisted for the Aspen Words PrizeA Book of the Month Club Selection for December 2018Shortlisted for the 2018 Chicago Review of Books AwardNew York Magazine Approval Matrix, "Highbrow Brilliant"A Southern Living Best New Book of Summer 2018A Millions Most Anticipated Book of 2018An Alma Favorite Book for FallA Nylon Best Book of Summer 2018A Chicago Magazine Summer Reading PickA Library Journal Summer Fall Best Debut NovelAn April Magazine Most Anticipated Book of 2018A BookBub Laugh-Out-Loud Book of 2018A Library Journal Debut With CredentialsA Refinery29 Best New Book of August 2018A Greenlight Bookstore Pick in Brooklyn Paper ?Severance is the most gorgeously written novel I?ve read all year; when I finished it, I immediately picked it up and read it all over again.? ?Jane Hu, The New Republic?Severance is the best work of fiction I?ve read yet about the millennial condition?the alienation and cruelty that comes with being a functional person under advanced global capitalism, and the compromised pleasures and irreducibly personal meaning to be found in claiming some stability in a terrible world. I love how, in this novel, doom is inevitable, and yet it comes so slowly you might not even notice it. Ling Ma has written one of my favorite novels of the year.? ?Jia Tolentino, New Yorker staff writer?A satirical spin on the end times?kind of like The Office meets The Leftovers.? ?Estelle Tang, Elle"[A] standout debut. Satiric and playful?as well as scary . . . Ling Ma is an assured and inventive storyteller [and Severance] reflects on the nature of human identity and how much the repetitive tasks we perform come to define who we are. . . . A sardonic wake-up call." ?Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air, National Public Radio"[A] semi-surreal sendup of a workplace and its utopia of rules, not unlike Joshua Ferris's Then We Came to the End . . . Laced within Ma's dystopian narrative is an arresting encapsulation of a first-generation immigrant's nostalgia for New York . . . Severance evokes traces of . . . Joan Didion." ?Antonia Hitchens, The New York Times Book Review"How do you fit a zombie novel inside an immigrant story inside a coming-of-age tale? Ling Ma . . . accomplished this feat in her gripping and original turducken of a novel . . . Fascinating." ?Trine Tsouderos, The Chicago Tribune?Ma?s prose is, for the most part, understated and restrained, somewhat in the manner of Kazuo Ishiguro . . . Ma is at her most deft when depicting this kind of severance: the amputation of the immigrant?s past, preserved like a phantom limb whose pain is haunted with absence.? ?Jiayang Fan, The New Yorker"Gorgeously wacky." ?Hillary Kelly, Vulture?Tense and elegant, Ma?s writing here masterfully treads the line between genre fiction and literature. Part bildungsroman, part horror flick, Severance thrillingly morphs into a novel about self-worth, about the kinds of value we place on our own lives.? ?Larissa Pham, The Nation?Ling Ma?s extraordinary debut encompasses many genres and might just be the first and only coming-of-age, immigrant experience, anti-capitalist zombie novel you?ll ever need." ?The Cut?Ma?s writing about the jargon of globalized capitalism has a mix of humor and pathos that reminded me a little of Infinite Jest and a little of George Saunders.? ?Emily Witt, The New Yorker"If Dawn of the Dead and all things zombie are your happy places, read Ling Ma's Severance . . . Candace serves as the anti-Everyman ? a lens through which others can see themselves in post-apocalyptic narratives . . . Like Dawn of the Dead, Severance centers on American consumerism, materialism, and misinformation without being preachy." ?New Times Broward/Palm Beach"I recommend [Severance] unreservedly: it?s perfect for when you?re living in that space between ?oh shit, what if the world ends? and ?oh shit, what if the world doesn?t end??and truly, who isn?t living in that space right now?" ?Katie Yee, Lit Hub?Ling Ma?s Severance . . . sneaks up on you from all sides: it?s an affecting portrayal of loss, a precise fictional evocation of group dynamics, and a sharp character study of its protagonist, Candace Chen.? ?Tobias Carroll, Tor.com"Ling Ma delivers a fascinating coming-of-age novel, one full of millennial culture, post-apocalyptic adventures, and, perhaps most exciting of all, a zombie-like populace . . . Severance wonderfully demonstrates how the lifestyles we lead now can have a great impact on our future.? ?M. M. Silva, Zyzzyva"Shocking and ferocious . . . a fierce debut from a writer with seemingly boundless imagination. . . a wicked satire of consumerism and work culture . . . Severance's a stunning, audacious book with a fresh take on both office politics and what the apocalypse might bring: This is the way the world ends, Ma seems to be saying, not with a bang but a memo." ?Michael Schaub, NPR.org"A suspenseful adventure that doubles as a sly critique of late capitalism." ?Boris Kachka, V, Farrar, Straus & Giroux<