Porcupine recreates the first meeting of pioneering art historian and Renaissance scholar Aby Warburg and philosopher Ernst Cassirer in a Swiss asylum in 1924. Warburg’s mounting fears of political and social collapse and the rise of anti-Semitism during the aftermath of the First World War had fueled a psychotic break that led to his confinement. He sees enemies everywhere, railing against philistines, modern technology, the city of Hamburg, Martin Luther, and Switzerland. As the two men walk in loops through the institution gardens, Warburg, desperate to convince Cassirer of his sanity, struggles between psychosis and a feverish attempt to lucidly convey his core ideas—to talk his way out of a cage of his own making.
In 2024, Porcupine was shortlisted for The Novel Prize.
Notices
“In Nick Holdstock’s hugely impressive rendering of a brilliant but deeply troubled mind, Aby Warburg fizzes with paranoia, hope, frustration, and intellectual passion. A generous, funny, and ultimately moving novel, rich in ideas that radiate far beyond its repeated circuits of the sanatorium grounds.”
—Jo Lloyd, winner of the BBC Short Story Prize and author of The Earth, Thy Great Exchequer, Ready Lies
“Porcupine is a feat of tremendous research and even greater imagination. In these pages art historian Aby Warburg’s mind spins at dizzying speeds, but Holdstock’s unforgettable portrayal of a great and troubled man allows the reader to enjoy each raving sentence and step around the garden. I was enraptured.”
—Emily Nemens, author of Clutch
“An experience of troubled genius, an obsessive mind warped by its own knowledge. Fluently written and utterly compelling, with the authentic stink of early 20th-century intellectual pursuit, its dangers and its passion. A brilliant working of historical material and fictional conjecture.”
—C.D. Rose, author of We Live Here Now
“Porcupine is a compelling, hypnotic work, at times frightening and at times funny. It has echoes of Kafka and Thomas Bernhard, yet speaks in its own, unique voice. And the punchline is superb.”
—John Banville, author of Venetian Vespers
Nick Holdstock is the author of two novels, The Casualties (St Martins, 2015) and Quarantine (Swift, 2022), and a short story collection, The False River (Unthank, 2019). He has written three non-fiction books about China: The Tree That Bleeds (Luath, 2012), Chasing the Chinese Dream (IB Tauris, 2017) and China’s Forgotten People (Bloomsbury, 2019).