The Schooldays of Jesus

Book excerpt: From the double Booker Prize-winning author of Disgrace, an astonishing novel of new beginnings and the troubles of youth. 'Brilliant... Tenaciously absorbing' Daily Telegraph David is the small boy who is always asking questions. Simón and Inés take care of him in their new town, Estrella. He is learning the language, he has begun to make friends and he has the big dog Bolívar to watch over him. But he'll be seven soon and he should be at school. And so, David is enrolled in the Academy of Dance. It's here, in his new golden dancing slippers, that he learns how to call down the numbers from the sky. Yet it's here too that he will make troubling discoveries about what adults are capable of. The Schooldays of Jesus is a mesmerising tale about growing up, and about the choices we are forced to make in our lives. 'Compelling, often very funny, full of sudden depths' Observer Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2016