Life As Told by a Sapiens to a Neanderthal

Juan José Millás, Juan Luis Arsuaga (trans. Thomas Bunstead, Daniel Hahn)

‘A very special book indeed: a passionate, sympathetic portrait of one life scientist’s world view.’

Simon Ings, The Telegraph

‘Novelist Millás … and palaeontologist Arsuaga combine forces in this introspective and playful exploration of human prehistory and evolution … Erudite yet fun, this is an illuminating trip into the past.’

Publishers Weekly

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‘A lovely book, full of information and wisdom … No doubt comparisons will be made to Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens, but Life as Told By a Sapiens to a Neanderthal, is much more fun … It makes you want more. What better recommendation for any book can there be than this? Roll on Life as Told By a Sapiens to a Neanderthal volume 2.’

Neil Robinson, Irish Examiner

‘Charming.’

Simon Ings, New Scientist

‘Written with humour and lightly-worn learning, this book makes the familiar strange and the strange uncannily familiar; a fascinating journey into our shared prehistory via the shops, galleries, restaurants, playgrounds, and parks of a twenty-first century city.’

Helen Gordon, author of Notes from Deep Time: A Journey Through Our Past and Future World

‘Absorbing, amusing, and enlightening; a charming exploration not only of evolution, but of human enquiry and wonder.’

Rebecca Wragg Sykes, author of Kindred: Neanderthal life, love, death and art

‘Millás is one of the writers with the most truth per square centimetre of a page.’

Antonio Iturbe, What to Read

‘We like wise men to explain things to us and understand each other. This is what Arsuaga does wonderfully in his book, a luminous treatise on life, the universe, and human existence.’

Víctor M. Amela, La Vanguardia

‘Juan José Millás is the owner of a fantastic territory of unquestionable personality.’

J.E. Ayala-Dip, El País

‘Juan Luis Arsuaga has recounted that prodigious start of human life with all the force of the great chronicles of travel and discoveries, with his double talent as a storyteller and scientist.’

Antonio Muñoz Molina

‘[Arsuaga] is one of the world’s leading experts on the evolution of our species, as well as a prestigious scientist and a born populariser.’

Ixone Díaz Landaluce, ABC

‘Millás takes advantage of the present to tell us about his life, to express his perplexity, which is ours, before the passing of the world … Navigating through it allows our imagination to travel.’

Fernando Delgado, La Opinion

‘Dazzling … The charming result of this collaboration combines Millás’s surreal, ironic humour and beautiful reflections with Arsuaga’s expertise, expressed with sharp and surprising observations and an ability to bring prehistory up to date.’

Rebecca Wragg Sykes, New Scientist

A New Scientist Book of the Year

Prehistory is all around us. We just need to know where to look.

Juan José Millás has always felt like he doesn’t quite fit into human society. Sometimes he wonders if he is even a Homo sapiens at all. Perhaps he is a Neanderthal who somehow survived? So he turns to Juan Luis Arsuaga, one of the world’s leading palaeontologists and a super-smart sapiens, to explain why we are the way we are and where we come from.

Over the course of many months the two visit different places, many of them common scenes of our daily lives, and others unique archaeological sites. Arsuaga tries to teach the Neanderthal how to think like a sapiens and, above all, that prehistory is not a thing of the past: that traces of humanity through the millennia can be found anywhere, from a cave or a landscape to a children’s playground or a toy shop.

Millás and Arsuaga invite you on a journey of wonder that unites scientific discovery with the greatest human invention of all: the art of storytelling.

‘A very special book indeed: a passionate, sympathetic portrait of one life scientist’s world view.’

Simon Ings, The Telegraph

Publishers Weekly

View all reviews

Neil Robinson, Irish Examiner

‘Charming.’

Simon Ings, New Scientist

Helen Gordon, author of Notes from Deep Time: A Journey Through Our Past and Future World

‘Absorbing, amusing, and enlightening; a charming exploration not only of evolution, but of human enquiry and wonder.’

Rebecca Wragg Sykes, author of Kindred: Neanderthal life, love, death and art

‘Millás is one of the writers with the most truth per square centimetre of a page.’

Antonio Iturbe, What to Read

‘We like wise men to explain things to us and understand each other. This is what Arsuaga does wonderfully in his book, a luminous treatise on life, the universe, and human existence.’

Víctor M. Amela, La Vanguardia

‘Juan José Millás is the owner of a fantastic territory of unquestionable personality.’

J.E. Ayala-Dip, El País

‘Juan Luis Arsuaga has recounted that prodigious start of human life with all the force of the great chronicles of travel and discoveries, with his double talent as a storyteller and scientist.’

Antonio Muñoz Molina

‘[Arsuaga] is one of the world’s leading experts on the evolution of our species, as well as a prestigious scientist and a born populariser.’

Ixone Díaz Landaluce, ABC

Fernando Delgado, La Opinion

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Details

Format:Hardback

Size: 216mm × 135mm

Extent:224pp

ISBN (13):9781914484025

RRP:£14.99

Pub date:14 Jul 2022

High-res cover:Download Image

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Juan José Millás

Juan José Millás is a bestselling and multi award–winning Spanish novelist and short-story writer, and an award-winning regular contributor to major Spanish newspapers. His narrative works have been translated into more than 20 languages, and include the novels From the Shadows and None Shall Sleep.

Juan Luis Arsuaga

Juan Luis Arsuaga is a professor of paleontology at the Complutense University of Madrid and the director of the Human Evolution and Behaviour Institute. He is a member of the American National Academy of Sciences and of the Musée de l’Homme of Paris, a visiting professor at University College London, and a co-director of excavations at the Sierra de Atapuerca World Heritage site. He is a regular contributor to Nature, Science, and the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, is the editor of the Journal of Human Evolution, and is a regular lecturer at the universities of London, Cambridge, Berkeley, New York, Tel Aviv, and Zurich, among others. The recipient of many national and international awards, he is the author of more than a dozen works.

TRANSLATORS

Thomas Bunstead

Thomas Bunstead is a writer and translator, and currently a Royal Literary Fellow at Aberystwyth University (2021–23). His recent translations include Portrait of an Unknown Lady by María Gainza and Skin by Sergio del Molino.

Daniel Hahn

Daniel Hahn is a writer, editor, and translator, with some eighty books to his name. His work has won him the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award, and has been shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize, among many others. His recent translations include Diamela Eltit’s Never Did the Fire, a novel, and Sidarta Ribeiro’s The Oracle of Night, a nonfiction book about neuroscience and dreaming.

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Life As Told by a Sapiens to a Neanderthal

Juan José Millás, Juan Luis Arsuaga (trans. Thomas Bunstead, Daniel Hahn)

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