While the prize has only been in operation since 2012, it has become a real treasure trove of literary greats. La Belle Sauvage joins a host of other brilliant books as 2017’s Waterstones Book Of The Year winners. Other Waterstones Book Of The Year winners The book also features an apocalyptic flood, inspired by real-world climate change. The main character from His Dark Materials, Lyra Belacqua, appears in the book as a baby.Īs such, La Belle Sauvage features an entirely separate protagonist, Malcolm, who is charged with protecting Lyra from a sinister plot. The setting for La Belle Sauvage is Oxford university. The world of the books also includes a totalitarian version of the Catholic church. The story is set in the same fictional universe where humans are accompanied at all times by dæmons, physical manifestations of the person’s soul, who take the form of animals. What is La Belle Sauvage about?Īs mentioned above, La Belle Sauvage is something akin to a prequel to Pullman’s children’s classic, Northern Lights (known as The Golden Compass in America). But this manages to be both a tremendously good read, so young people can read it and enjoy it, and also a sophisticated, challenging and thoughtful book that any reader of any age will benefit from. Sometimes when the anticipation is so much, there’s a slight let-down when it turns up and it isn’t quite what you expect. But when just about every bookseller in the business says it’s first Pullman and then something else, you end up saying ‘Well, the booksellers have spoken.’ It is the book of the year.Įlsewhere, Daunt spoke gushingly about his passion for the novel: However, he decided that the sheer weight of nominations from staff was enough to win the award for Pullman:Ĭommercially, I sit there thinking: ‘Can we give the prize to something else?’ because we’re going to sell lots of this book anyway.

La belle sauvage philip pullman