What if this world is just a first draft, made by some great artist in order to be destroyed?

In this first draft of existence, a woman named Mira leaves home to study. There, she meets Annie, whose tremendous power opens Mira's chest like a portal to what, she doesn't know. When Mira is older, her beloved father dies, and she enters that strange and dizzying dimension that great loss opens up.

Pure Colour is a book about the shape of a life, from beginning to end. It's about art, critics, and ageing. It's about the surrounding world sky, trees, lakes, stars and 'the world beyond this world', which can be glimpsed in rare moments when something shattering occurs.

This is a galaxy of a novel: explosive, celestially bright, huge, and streaked with beauty. It's a contemporary bible, an atlas of feeling, and its shapeshifting, mystical form allows us to take in the whole world in one glance.



Sheila Heti is the author of ten books, including the novels Pure Colour, Motherhood and How Should a Person Be? She recently published her second children’s book, A Garden of Creatures, illustrated by Esme Shapiro. In early 2024, An Alphabetical Diary will be published by Fitzcarraldo Editions, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and Knopf Canada. The book, which was excerpted over 10 weeks in the New York Times, has been optioned for a television series by Hulu.