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  • Published: 16 May 2023
  • ISBN: 9781761048173
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $26.00

The Unknown Terrorist




From the winner of the Man Booker Prize. What would you do if you turned on the television and saw you were the most wanted terrorist in the country?

After spending a night with an attractive stranger, Gina Davies becomes a prime suspect in an attempted terrorist attack. When police find three unexploded bombs at a stadium, Gina goes on the run and witnesses every truth of her life turned into a betrayal.

A devastating picture of a world where the ceaseless drumbeat of terror alerts, news breaks, and fear of the unknown push one woman ever closer to breaking point, The Unknown Terrorist is a novel that with each passing year seems more relevant and more prophetic.

  • Published: 16 May 2023
  • ISBN: 9781761048173
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $26.00

About the author

Richard Flanagan

Richard Flanagan was born in Tasmania in 1961. His novels Death of a River Guide, The Sound of One Hand Clapping, Gould’s Book of Fish, The Unknown Terrorist, Wanting and The Narrow Road to the Deep North have received numerous honours and are published in 42 countries. He won the Man Booker Prize for The Narrow Road to the Deep North in 2014.

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Praise for The Unknown Terrorist

Flanagan’s writing is a brilliant reflection of Gina’s world. Full of steamy sex, drugs and violence, with a touch of high-status voyeurism, packaged into short chapters perfect for readers with limited attention spans, The Unknown Terrorist mocks the thriller genre even as it fulfills its expectations.

New York Times

The Unknown Terrorist is an exercise in genre fiction - a thriller that, I am glad to say, happens to be genuinely thrilling.

Peter Conrad, Guardian

Flanagan narrates the story from a position of godlike omniscience, making grim pronouncements on society’s rampant discrimination and fear of foreigners. His tender characterization renders Gina Davies’s tale mightily plausible, and terribly sad. A writer who knows his characters and setting creates a compelling, timely work.

Kirkus Reviews

A true page-turner as well as a timely, pithy critique of celebrity culture and the politics of fearmongering.

Starred review, Publishers Weekly