The Ministry of Time: Kaliane Bradley

An instant New York Times and Sunday Times Bestseller Shortlisted for the Waterstone’s Debut Fiction Prize 2024

‘Fast moving and riotously entertaining, a genre-busting blend of wit and wonder’ Observer

A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all: welcome to The Ministry of Time. Inspired by the work of Terry Pratchett, this rollicking and sexy sci-fi debut is the story of Gore, a Victorian polar explorer who is ‘expatriated’ (forcibly captured) from 1847 to the 2020s as part of a government experiment to test the feasibility of time-travel; and an unnamed civil servant, his ‘bridge’, a former Ministry of Defence translator whose job for the next year is to live with, report on and help Gore assimilate to the twenty-first century. Arriving to major excitement in the UK, the book has been published in the USA and in 20 languages (and counting) worldwide. It will soon be on screen in a major BBC TV adaptation.

Kaliane Bradley is a British-Cambodian writer and editor based in London. Her short stories have appeared in Electric Literature and Catapult among others. She was the winner of the 2022 Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Prize and the 2022 V. S. Pritchett Short Story Prize, and selected as one of the Observer’s 10 best debut novelists of 2024.

Alex Pheby is Head of Creative Writing in the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics at Newcastle University and Co-Director of NCLA.

Culture Lab is building number 7 on Newcastle University's map of the campus