Playground

By: Richard Powers

Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Eunice Wong, Kevin R. Free, Krys Janae, Pun Bandhu, Robin Siegerman

Brought to you by Penguin.

LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024

A POWERFUL NEW NOVEL FROM THE PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AND BOOKER-SHORTLISTED AUTHOR OF THE OVERSTORY AND BEWILDERMENT

Rafi and Todd are two polar opposites at an elite high school where they bond over a three-thousand-year-old board game. It sets them up for life: Rafi will get lost in literature, while Todd’s work will lead to a startling AI breakthrough.

Elsewhere, Evie Beaulieu sinks to the bottom of a swimming pool in Montreal strapped to one of the world’s first aqualungs; Ina Aroita grows up in naval bases across the Pacific with art as her only home.

All of these people meet on the history-scarred island of Makatea in French Polynesia, marked for humanity’s next great adventure: a plan to send floating, autonomous cities out into the open sea. As the seasteaders close in, how will Evie play the ever-unfolding oceanic game? Will Ina engage in acts of destruction? Todd and Rafi, now estranged, still find themselves in competition: Todd unravels while working on an idea to redraw the boundaries of human immortality, while Rafi and the residents must decide if they will greenlight the new project on their shores and change their home forever.

Set in the world’s largest ocean, Playground explores that last wild place we have yet to colonize and interweaves profound themes of technology and the environment, and a deep exploration of our shared humanity in a way only Richard Powers can.

'Is there anything Richard Powers cannot write? The world here is complete, seductive, and promising. The writing feels like the ocean. Vast, mysterious, deep and alive' PERCIVAL EVERETT

'An extraordinarily immersive journey through lives linked in mysterious ways - gripping, alarming and uplifting' EMMA DONOGHUE

‘Powers is a master of taking important topics of our times – from threats to our oceans and climate change to AI – and turning them into riveting and fiercely relevant books imbued with psychological insight and a deep awe for nature. This eloquent dance of the scientific and emotional makes him one of our finest story tellers. PLAYGROUND is brilliant, captivating and important – and the best book I’ve read this year’ ANDREA WULF

©2024 Richard Powers (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

Powers is a master of taking important topics of our times – from threats to our oceans and climate change to AI – and turning them into riveting and fiercely relevant books imbued with psychological insight and a deep awe for nature. This eloquent dance of the scientific and emotional makes him one of our finest story tellers. PLAYGROUND is brilliant, captivating and important (Andrea Wulf)

Is there anything Richard Powers cannot write? The world here is complete, seductive, and promising. The writing feels like the ocean. Vast, mysterious, deep and alive (Percival Everett)

An extraordinarily immersive journey through lives linked in mysterious ways - gripping, alarming and uplifting (Emma Donoghue)

This ambitious, rapturous Booker-longlisted epic explores life underwater, generative AI, climate crisis and the power of play

Playground ... isn't merely a great American novel, but a magnificent one

Along with its environmental warnings, the book carries an intriguing look at the ways people and animals play, as in the boys’ competitive chess, the antics of manta rays, the allure of computer games, and what a meta-minded author might do with his readers. An engaging, eloquent message for this fragile planet.

Magisterial, moving and thought-provoking ... a beautiful love letter to our oceans

A work of imaginative skill that opens doors into an undersea future where human exceptionalism isn't taken for granted, and finds hope where other writers, and thinkers, would dwell in despair

A compelling, eloquent love letter to what [Powers] calls this "fading" planet ... There is a lot going on in Playground, with reflections on power, nature and friendship in a book with well-drawn protagonists and graceful prose. It is a story that rewards a slow read for full immersement

Powerful, mesmerically beautiful