The Plunderer’s Daughter

A coming of age story about a world in which the last and only science of humans is archeology

All that can be, had already come to existence. From the very beginning of the universe, countless civilisations of various intelligent species have discovered and created everything that was there to be discovered and created. Now, after billions of years, all that can be done is digging up the ruins of long-gone powers and stealing their treasures.

Zuzanna’s father is the archeologist of alien civilisations. The biggest corporations and most powerful countries on Earth have for many years had access to the cemetery of non-human arts and technologies – known as City – but they keep the truth about it away from the masses; for a long time humankind’s discoveries have not been the discoveries made by humans, but loots brought back from xenoarcheologists’ expeditions. Zuzanna’s father has disappeared during one of those expeditions. Now, on her eighteenth birthday, she receives a parcel containing a key to City and mysterious instructions from her father.

The Plunderer’s Daughter takes the readers on a stroll along the streets of Infinity, to the prehistoric City – the reflection of all cities ever built by humans and non-humans, in this universe and the former ones, the treasury of all wisdom and the arena of struggle between the Powers.

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A modest futuristic novella or a Gnostic-inspired novel posing ultimate questions? The Plunderer’s Daughter is the quintessence of Jacek Dukaj's writing style.

Piotr Kofta, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna

The greatest value of this novel, as with Dukaj's other books, is the creation of the world in which the action takes place. The world of The Plunderer’s Daughter is diametrically different from our world, which is governed by simple rules - something exists or does not exist, someone is alive or dead. Whereas in the world of this novel, existence is gradable – pre-born and post-mortem people appear here, objects and phenomena that exist or occur in reality mix with virtual beings, elements of hallucinations, dreams and drug-induced visions.

Włodzimierz Jurasz, Dziennik Polski