Like the world around him, at the dawn of the twenty-first century Adam Kellas’s life is showing distinct signs of cracking. Against his better judgement, Kellas – spurned by his lover and by the world of letters – accepts a war corespondent assignment from his newspaper.

It is the beginning of a journey which takes him from the mountains of Afghanistan to the elegant dinner tables of north London, the marshlands of the American south and, ultimately, to the darkest realms of the human imagination. Only the memory of the beautiful, elusive Astrid, a fellow reporter in Afghanistan, offers him the possibility of hope.

James Meek’s reportage from Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and Iraq has won numerous international awards. His previous novel, The People’s Act of Love, won the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year and the Ondaatje Prize in 2006, and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2005.

This bold, cinematic novel displays Meek’s first-hand knowledge of the life of a foreign correspondent, set against the explosive politics and shifting values of the early twenty-first century. We are Now Beginning Our Descent demands to be read, contemplated and shared.

A timeless tale of folly and the pursuit of love, set against the incendiary politics of our time.