Description: Winner of the 2019 NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award Winner of the 2018 Kirkus Prize for Fiction Winner of the 2019 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award Winner of the 2019 Friends of American Writers First Prize in Literature Finalist for the 2019 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel Shortlisted for the 2019 Neukom Institute Literary Arts Award for Debut Speculative Fiction A New York Times Notable Book of 2018 An NPR Best Book of 2018 An Elle Best Book of 2018 A Marie Claire Best Book of 2018 A Buzzfeed Best Book of 2018 A Refinery29 Best Book of 2018 A Jezebel Favorite Book of 2018 A Bustle Best Book of 2018 An Electric Lit Best Novel of 2018 A Lit Hub Best Book of 2018 A BookPage Best Book of 2018 A Bookish Best Book of 2018 A Mental Floss Best Book of 2018 A Chicago Review of Books Best Book of 2018 A HuffPost Best Fiction Book of 2018 An Electric Literature Best Book of 2018 An A.V. Club Favorite Book of 2018 A Jezebel Favorite Book of 2018 A Vulture Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Book of 2018 Longlisted for the Aspen Words Prize A Book of the Month Club Selection for December 2018 Shortlisted for the 2018 Chicago Review of Books Award New York Magazine Approval Matrix, "Highbrow Brilliant" An Indie Next Great Reads Selection A Southern Living Best New Book of Summer 2018 A Millions Most Anticipated Book of 2018 An Alma Favorite Book for Fall A Nylon Best Book of Summer 2018 A Chicago Magazine Summer Reading Pick A Library Journal Summer Fall Best Debut Novel An April Magazine Most Anticipated Book of 2018 A BookBub Laugh-Out-Loud Book of 2018 A Library Journal Debut With Credentials A Refinery29 Best New Book of August 2018 A Greenlight Bookstore Pick in Brooklyn Paper " Severance is the most gorgeously written novel I''ve read all year; when I finished it, I immediately picked it up and read it all over again." --Jane Hu, The New Republic " Severance is the best work of fiction I''ve read yet about the millennial condition--the alienation and cruelty that comes with being a functional person under advanced global capitalism, and the compromised pleasures and irreducibly personal meaning to be found in claiming some stability in a terrible world. I love how, in this novel, doom is inevitable, and yet it comes so slowly you might not even notice it. Ling Ma has written one of my favorite novels of the year." --Jia Tolentino, New Yorker staff writer "A satirical spin on the end times--kind of like The Office meets The Leftovers." -- Estelle Tang, Elle "[A] standout debut. Satiric and playful--as well as scary . . . Ling Ma is an assured and inventive storyteller [and her novel] reflects on the nature of human identity and how much the repetitive tasks we perform come to define who we are. . . . A sardonic wake-up call." -- Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air, National Public Radio "[A] semi-surreal sendup of a workplace and its utopia of rules, not unlike Joshua Ferris''s Then We Came to the End . . . Laced within Ma''s dystopian narrative is an arresting encapsulation of a first-generation immigrant''s nostalgia for New York . . . Severance evokes traces of . . . Joan Didion." --Antonia Hitchens, The New York Times Book Review "How do you fit a zombie novel inside an immigrant story inside a coming-of-age tale? Ling Ma . . . accomplished this feat in her gripping and original turducken of a novel . . . Fascinating." --Trine Tsouderos, The Chicago Tribune "Ma''s prose is, for the most part, understated and restrained, somewhat in the manner of Kazuo Ishiguro . . . Ma is at her most deft when depicting this kind of severance: the amputation of the immigrant''s past, preserved like a phantom limb whose pain is haunted with absence." --Jiayang Fan, The New Yorker "Gorgeously wacky." --Hillary Kelly, Vulture "Tense and elegant, Ma''s writing here masterfully treads the line between genre fiction and literature. Part bildungsroman, part horror flick, Severance thrillingly morphs into a novel about self-worth, about the kinds of value we place on our own lives." -- Larissa Pham, The Nation "Ling Ma''s extraordinary debut encompasses many genres and might just be the first and only coming-of-age, immigrant experience, anti-capitalist zombie novel you''ll ever need." -- The Cut "Ma''s writing about the jargon of globalized capitalism has a mix of humor and pathos that reminded me a little of Infinite Jest and a little of George Saunders." --Emily Witt, The New Yorker "I recommend [ Severance ] unreservedly: it''s perfect for when you''re living in that space between "oh shit, what if the world ends" and "oh shit, what if the world doesn''t end"--and truly, who isn''t living in that space right now?" --Katie Yee, Lit Hub "Ling Ma''s Severance . . . sneaks up on you from all sides: it''s an affecting portrayal of loss, a precise fictional evocation of group dynamics, and a sharp character study of its protagonist, Candace Chen." --Tobias Carroll, Tor.com "Ling Ma delivers a fascinating coming-of-age novel, one full of millennial culture, post-apocalyptic adventures, and, perhaps most exciting of all, a zombie-like populace . . . Severance wonderfully demonstrates how the lifestyles we lead now can have a great impact on our future." --M. M. Silva, Zyzzyva "Shocking and ferocious . . . a fierce debut from a writer with seemingly boundless imagination. . . a wicked satire of consumerism and work culture . . . It''s a stunning, audacious book with a fresh take on both office politics and what the apocalypse might bring: This is the way the world ends, Ma seems to be saying, not with a bang but a memo." -- Michael Schaub, NPR.org "A suspenseful adventure that doubles as a sly critique of late capitalism." -- Boris Kachka, Vulture "Funny, frightening, and touching.... Ling Ma manages the impressive trick of delivering a bildungsroman, a survival tale, and satire of late capitalist millennial angst in one book, and Severance announces its author as a supremely talented writer to watch." -- The Millions "As debut novels go, Severance is about as original and assured as they come." --Laura Pearson, The Chicago Tribune "If satirist Gary Shteyngart wrote his version of 2015 end-of-world breakout Station Eleven , it would be this compulsively readable book." -- Mind Body Green "Ling Ma''s debut novel tackles countless themes--immigration, work culture, family, capitalism, and the confusing aimlessness of your early 20s--with a dry wit that keeps the horrific digestible, the repetitive laughable, and the pages turning." --Marie Claire "Astounding . . . Ma''s engrossing, masterfully written debut transforms the mundane into a landscape of tricky memory, where questions of late-stage capitalism, immigration, displacement and motherhood converge in such a sly build-up as to render the reader completely stunned." -- BookPage "Ling Ma''s debut novel is a weird and funny story that melds an end-of-the-world collapse of civilization with a sharp critique of modern work culture, along with a dose of meditation on grief and the immigrant experience." -- Chris Kim, OZY "A brilliantly unsettling dystopian novel following a young woman who somehow escapes a fever epidemic and joins a cult-like group of fellow survivors." -- Bust "The book I loved most of all in 2018, the queen of the stack (if you will), is Severance . . . It''s I Am Legend for the plugged-in, globally conscious, thinking woman. I could not be more obsessed." -- Siobhan Jones, Book of the Month Club "Ma''s writing is compelling and cogent, perfectly satirizing a world that often feels beyond parody." -- Nylon "[ Severance is] a book about work that puts the work in the context of globalization, a book that is mordant and sad and full of quicksilver allegories. I loved that book so much." --Lydia Kiesling, The Millions "Ma''s language does so much in this book, and its precision, its purposeful specificity, implicates an entire generation. But what is most remarkable is the gentleness with which Ma describes those working within the capital-S System. What does it mean if a person finds true comfort working as a ''cog'' in a system they disagree with? Is that comfort any less real?" -- Buzzfeed "What Ma accomplishes with her fever-stricken world is what sets Severance apart. Rather than take the end of days as a chance for the usual pontifications on societal collapse--most seemingly ignorant that we b

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