Universality

'Brave, wry, cool, and thrilling.' Andrew O'Hagan

'Original, vital, and unputdownable.' Tess Gunty

'Breathtaking ... a precise dissection of class, wealth and power.' Elizabeth Day

In the new novel from the author of Assembly, a viral longread exposé raises more questions than it answers.

Remember - words are your weapons, they're your tools, your currency.



On a Yorkshire farm, a man is brutally bludgeoned with a solid gold bar.



A plucky young journalist sets out to uncover the truth surrounding the attack, connecting the dots between an amoral banker landlord, an iconoclastic columnist, and a radical anarchist movement. She solves the mystery, but her viral longread exposé raises more questions than it answers.

Universality is a twisty, slippery descent into the rhetoric of truth and power. Through a voyeuristic lens, it focuses on words: what we say, how we say it, and what we really mean. The follow-up novel to Natasha Brown's Assembly is a compellingly nasty celebration of the spectacular force of language. It dares you to look away.



Natasha Brown is a British novelist. Her debut novel Assembly was shortlisted for several awards including the Folio Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize and the Orwell Prize for Fiction. It has been translated into 17 languages. Natasha was named one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists in 2023 and one of the Observer's Best Debut Novelists in 2021. She's also a Women's Prize Futures Award finalist.