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A beautiful, heartbreaking novel of memory, love and space from the award-winning author of the Women''s Prize longlisted debut novel Wandering Souls . January 28, 1986: soon after launch the Challenger shuttle falls out of the sky and into the sea. At the same time, in a small English village, Oliver Ines is born. Oliver Ines grows up in a bedroom papered with glow-in-the-dark wallpaper bearing the planets and stars of the galaxy. When he becomes one of the most renowned astronauts the world has seen, it feels as if his path was preordained. But as Ollie comes-of-age, falls in love with his first love Philly, makes friends and loses them along the way, we begin to see just how far he is willing to go to secure his destiny. When an enterprising billionaire seeks him out to train as an astronaut and later lead a mission to Europa, Oliver makes the fateful decision to leave Philly, his son and loved ones behind. Ollie will travel further and longer into space than anyone before him. Aboard the spacecraft with only three other crew members for company over many years, he charts their precarious progress via a private log. Everything in his life has built to this moment, and yet everything he knows is about to change forever. Celestial Lights is a dazzling and heartbreaking portrait of ambition, love and duty. It explores the sacrifices required to achieve the hopes we so desire and what happens when they turn out not be what they at first seemed.
Über den Autor / die Autorin
Cecile Pin is a London-based writer. Her debut novel Wandering Souls was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Prix Femina Etranger, and shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize. She has won the Fragonard Prize for Foreign Literature, a Somerset Maugham Award, and a London Writers' Award. In 2025, she was selected as one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Europe.
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Praise for Celestial Lights:
'Pin's sophomore novel is a masterful meditation on ambition and the vanity of legacy. Celestial Lights melds sharp insight with great heart' Nicole Dinan, author of Disappoint Me
'A thoughtful and compelling exploration of human ambition, perfect for fans of Interstellar' Alice Winn, author of In Memoriam
'With this incredibly beautiful and emotive second novel, Cecile Pin has proved once again that she truly knows every corner of what it is to be human. Celestial Lights is a deeply moving story about the cost of the lives we live that I will be thinking about for a very long time' Ore Agbaje-Williams, author of The Three of Us
'Truly lovely ... Celestial Lights has the scope of an epic, but subtly rendered' Jo Hamya, author of The Hypocrite
Praise for Wandering Souls:
'I raced through it. Beautiful, brilliant, unflinching' R.F. Kuang, author of Katabasis
'This lean, affecting book packs a mighty punch and heralds a dazzling new talent' Observer
'Powerful ... a bold debut that breaks new ground' Sunday Times
'A deeply humane and genre-defying work of love and uncompromising hope through a long-overdue portrayal of Vietnamese life in the UK' Ocean Vuong, author of The Emperor of Gladness
'A heartbreaking novel ... a deeply affecting reckoning with history' i-D
'A poignant saga with its grieving, beating heart firmly in the right place, and heralds the arrival of an ambitious and promising new talent' Guardian
'A powerful story of courage, love and unwavering hope' Marie Claire
'Something special - a polyvocal novel, an essay on inherited trauma and a quiet metafiction about telling stories we don't own' New York Times
'Meticulously researched and beautifully imagined ... deeply affecting' Tash Aw, author of The South
'As relevant now as it ever was. You won't get through this without your heart breaking' AnOther Magazine
