'Imaginative, funny and dazzlingly clever.' John Carey, Sunday TimesMankind, scientists agree, is a tiny and insignificant anomaly in the impersonal vastness of the universe. But what would that universe be like if we were not here to say something about it? Would it even be so vast, without the fact of our insignificance to give it scale?This paradox is what Michael Frayn calls'the world's oldest mystery'. He shows how fleeting and indeterminate our contacts with the world around us are. The world is what we make of it - but what are we?'The breadth of [Frayn's] reading is awesome and he is fearless in interpreting, and in some cases attacking, the philosophical or scientific dogmas of this or that revered savant. Everywhere he is eminently sensible, especially when he is making nonsense of our illusory certainties.' John Banville'Brilliant and engaging ... A dazzling and entertaining dialogue between [Frayn] and the reader.' Patrick Masterson, Irish Times

Michael Frayn was born in London in 1933 and began his career as a journalist on the Guardian and the Observer. His novels include Towards the End of the Morning, The Trick of It and A Landing on the Sun. Headlong was shortlisted for the 1999 Booker Prize, Whitbread Novel Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. His thirteen plays range from Noises Off to Copenhagen, and he has translated a number of works, mostly from Russian. He is married to the biographer and critic Claire Tomalin.