In Hospital Ward A4, Kleinzeit discovers he is not alone: his fellow patients also suffer from nonsensical but possibly deadly ailments which all have something strange in common. With the help of the beautiful night nurse and armed with a glockenspiel and a paperback of Thucydides, Kleinzeit escapes from hospital and finds himself plunged headlong into a wild and flickering netherworld of mystery involving the Underground, an enigmatic red-bearded man, a key, sheets of yellow paper, and Death himself ...

A hilarious, surreal and completely unpredictable novel about one man's search for reality, Kleinzeit (1974) is one of Russell Hoban's best-loved works.

'Hoban is as funny and unusual as any writer around ... Kleinzeit is a sort of holy fool, a fierce, lonely intelligence desperately trying to make sense of a hopeless world. A tour de force.' - Evening Standard

'Hoban is an extraordinarily talented novelist, an original mind in the era of mass-produced philosophers.' - Irish Times

'Delightful ... Kleinzeit's language is forever astonishing.' - Boston Globe