An epic, continent-spanning story of a world in convulsion, of millions broken between war, displacement and revolution, and of human bonds so strong, of love so absolute, that they stretch from Sarajevo to Shanghai without snapping, and conquer all.

'This life-stuffed novel is Aleksandar Hemon’s masterpiece' - David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas

The World and All That It Holds is the epic, cross-continental tale of a love so strong it conquers the Great War, revolution, and even death itself.

As the Archduke Franz Ferdinand arrives in Sarajevo one June day in 1914, Rafael Pinto is busy crushing herbs and grinding tablets behind the counter at the pharmacy he inherited from his father. It’s not quite the life he had expected during his poetry-filled student days in libertine Vienna, but it’s nothing a dash of laudanum, a summer stroll and idle fantasies can’t put in perspective.

And then the world explodes. In the trenches in Galicia, fantasies fall flat. Heroism gets a man killed quickly. War devours all that they have known, and the only thing Pinto has to live for are the attentions of Osman, a fellow soldier, a man of action to complement Pinto’s introspective, poetic soul; a charismatic storyteller and Pinto’s protector and lover.

Together, Pinto and Osman will escape the trenches and find themselves entangled with spies and Bolsheviks. As they travel over mountains and across deserts, from one world to another, all the way to Shanghai, it is Pinto’s love for Osman that will truly survive.

"'Alexsandar Hemon's new novel is immense. ... It contains almost as much as its title promises. By turns lyrical and sardonic, it is as emotionally compelling as it is clever. I'll be surprised if I enjoy a novel more this year.'" - Guardian

"A magnificent, ambitious masterpiece" - Financial Times

"Beguiling . . . Hemon is a master wordsmith and this novel contains multitudes" - Daily Mail

"The irrepressible voice of “The World and All That It Holds” glides along a cushion of poignancy buoyed by wry humor." - The Washington Post

"'A powerful exploration of love, memory and world-shaking events'" - Economist

"A potent story of love, war, and displacement... readers will delight in this sweeping epic" - Publishers Weekly

"Powerful and beautiful... Hemon pulls no punches in his most ambitious novel to date" - Kirkus Reviews

"“The World and All That It Holds” would be an audacious title for a book by anybody except God — or Aleksandar Hemon. But this Bosnian American author will make you a believer." - The Washington Post

"A wandering epic of a novel . . . This is a book about language, and its medium is a rich linguistic stew . . . The historical-fictional illusion he has created is so engrossing, so generous in the abundant pleasures it offers the reader" - Guardian

"An English-language writer of verbal agility and ethical finesse . . . Within this widescreen epic, he drills as piercingly as ever into the questions of language and freedom, choice and chance, that made the refugee a writer" - Economist

"Piercingly acute, and imbued with a sense of history – personal, emotional and world-transforming at the same time – which is as entertaining to read as it is devastating" - Big Issue

"The real miracle of “The World and All That It Holds” is that despite holding so much, we come to know the fragile joys of this one melancholy man so well that he feels written into our own past" - The Washington Post

"Hemon’s historical novel is every bit as ambitious as its title suggests... A true epic, charged with heartbreak and beauty." - Mail on Sunday