The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay(2000)

Michael Chabon

Winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY is a heart-wrenching story of escape, love and comic-book heroes set in Prague, New York and the Arctic.

One night in 1939, Josef Kavalier shuffles into his cousin Sam Clay’s cramped New York bedroom, his nerve-racking escape from Prague finally achieved. Little does he realise that this is the beginning of an extraordinary friendship and even more fruitful business partnership. Together, they create a comic strip called ‘The Escapist’, its superhero a Nazi-busting saviour who liberates the oppressed around the world. ‘The Escapist’ makes their fortune, but Joe can think of only one thing: how can he effect a real-life escape and free his family from the tyranny of Hitler?

Michael Chabon’s exceptional novel is a thrilling tightrope walk between high comedy and bitter tragedy. In Joe Kavalier and Sam Clay he has created two unforgettable characters bound together by love, family and cartoons.