A sinister tale of haunting beauty, from The Outcast author Sadie Jones.

It is the eve of Emerald Torringtons twentieth birthday and the family has assembled at Sterne, the once grand, now crumbling, family seat. The cake is iced, the wine decanted, the house gleams invitingly.

But before the first dish can be served, a mysterious group of strangers arrives at the door. Victims of a local train accident they are seeking shelter at the house.

The Torringtons welcome them in but there is something unsettling about the group and, as night falls and a storm rages outside, the family begins to wonder if something more malevolent than stranded travellers is in their home...

A treasure trove of outstanding stories from 'the best writer of our generation' (Gary Shteyngart) - the perfect gift for the Zadie Smith fan in your life

'She's already one of our best novelists and essayists, this reminds us that her short stories are right up there too' Observer

'Sexy and hilarious. There is no moment in Grand Union when we are not entertained, or doubt that we are in the company of one of our best contemporary writers' Guardian

'Brilliant. Another slam dunk. Street life, patois, music, food, clothes, hair: Smith has her finger on the pulse of life and the utter weirdness of whatever has just become normal. This is a book of and for the times, sobering in its clarity but bracingly witty and clever' Evening Standard

'Smith's dialogue crackles with mordant wit. This dazzling collection of stories will leave you with plenty to think about' Independent

Interleaving ten completely new and unpublished stories with some of her best-loved pieces from the New Yorker and elsewhere, Zadie Smith presents a dizzyingly rich and varied collection of fiction. Moving exhilaratingly across genres and perspectives, from the historic to the vividly current to the slyly dystopian, Grand Union is a sharply alert and prescient collection about time and place, identity and rebirth, the persistent legacies that haunt our present selves and the uncanny futures that rush up to meet us.

FROM THE BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER

WINNER OF THE NESTA FELLOWSHIP AWARD 2003

'Wildly entertaining, deeply affecting' Ali Smith, author of How to be both and Autumn

A coming-of-age tale to make the muses themselves roar with laughter and weep for pity -- sassy, razor-sharp and transformative.

Londinium, AD 211. Zuleika is a modern girl living in an ancient world. She's a back-alley firecracker, a scruffy Nubian babe with tangled hair and bare feet - and she's just been married off a fat old Roman. Life as a teenage bride is no joke but Zeeks is a born survivor. She knows this city like the back of her hand: its slave girls and drag queens, its shining villas and rotting slums. She knows how to get by. Until one day she catches the eye of the most powerful man on earth, the Roman Emperor, and her trouble really starts . . .

Silver-tongued and merry-eyed, this is a story in song and verse, a joyful mash-up of today and yesterday. Kaleidoscoping distant past and vivid present, The Emperor's Babe asks what it means to be a woman and to survive in this thrilling, brutal, breathless world.