The Cockroach

· Vintage Digital · Narrated by Bill Nighy
5.0
2 reviews
Audiobook
2 hr 13 min
Unabridged
Eligible
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About this audiobook

Brought to you by Penguin.

Kafka meets The Thick Of It in a bitingly funny new political satire from Ian McEwan


That morning, Jim Sams, clever but by no means profound, woke from uneasy dreams to find himself transformed into a gigantic creature.


Jim Sams has undergone a metamorphosis. In his previous life he was ignored or loathed, but in his new incarnation he is the most powerful man in Britain – and it is his mission to carry out the will of the people. Nothing must get in his way: not the opposition, nor the dissenters within his own party. Not even the rules of parliamentary democracy.

With trademark intelligence, insight and scabrous humour, Ian McEwan pays tribute to Franz Kafka’s most famous work to engage with a world turned on its head.

Ratings and reviews

5.0
2 reviews
George Maalouf
May 10, 2023
A bizarre premise, that soon turns into a very clever allegory...with the biting wit of The Thick of It ..I just wished it were longer.
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About the author

Ian McEwan is the critically acclaimed author of seventeen novels and two short story collections. His first published work, a collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites, won the Somerset Maugham Award. His novels include The Child in Time, which won the 1987 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award; The Cement Garden; Enduring Love; Amsterdam, which won the 1998 Booker Prize; Atonement; Saturday; On Chesil Beach; Solar; Sweet Tooth; The Children Act; Nutshell; and Machines Like Me, which was a number-one bestseller. Atonement, Enduring Love, The Children Act and On Chesil Beach have all been adapted for the big screen.

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Narrated by Bill Nighy