Reading Order
Lincoln in the Bardo Reading Order
George Saunders's Lincoln in the Bardo (2017) is his debut novel — Abraham Lincoln visiting the Georgetown graveyard where his eleven-year-old son Willie has been buried, as hundreds of ghosts (souls in the Tibetan Buddhist 'bardo' state between death and rebirth) watch and comment. Saunders narrates through a polyphony of ghost voices interspersed with historical accounts of Lincoln's grief, often contradicting each other. It won the Man Booker Prize in 2017 and is one of the most formally inventive American novels of the decade — a novel that is both a meditation on grief and an examination of Lincoln's character at a decisive moment in the Civil War.
Where to start
Lincoln in the Bardo
Complete Lincoln in the Bardo Book List
- 1Buy
Lincoln in the Bardo
George Saunders·2017·The complete novel — approximately 350 pages, the polyphonic ghost-voice structure becoming easier to navigate as the novel proceeds; most readers find it easier than it initially appears. - 2Buy
Tenth of December
George Saunders·2013·The essential story collection companion — the best introduction to Saunders's voice and the collection most directly related to Lincoln in the Bardo's emotional concerns.
Lincoln in the Bardo — Frequently Asked Questions
What is the bardo in Lincoln in the Bardo?
The bardo (Tibetan: བར་དོ་, 'intermediate state') is the Tibetan Buddhist concept of the state between death and rebirth — a transitional state in which the soul has left one life but not yet begun another. In the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the bardo is a state of illusion in which the soul may be confused about its condition and must navigate correctly to achieve a good rebirth. Saunders uses the bardo as a framework for the Georgetown graveyard — his ghosts are souls who do not yet know they are dead, or who refuse to accept it, clinging to what they left behind. Willie Lincoln, who died of typhoid fever at eleven, is in the bardo; his father Lincoln's grief keeps him there.
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