The Tesseract (novel)

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The Tesseract
Author Alex Garland
Country UK
Language English
Publisher Viking
Publication date 1998
Media type Print (paperback)
Pages 226
ISBN ISBN 0-670-87016-1

The Tesseract is a 1998 English-language novel by Alex Garland. The story intertwines the lives of Manila gangsters, mothers and street children. The novel chronicles numerous characters in non-linear storylines and explores themes of love, adultery, fate, violence, power, and choices. It is Garland's second novel.

The term 'tesseract' is used for the three-dimensional net of the four-dimensional hypercube rather than the hypercube itself. It is a metaphor for the characters' inability to understand the causes behind the events which shape their lives: they can only visualize the superficial world they inhabit.[citation needed]

The book was adapted into a film, The Tesseract, which changed the setting to Bangkok. It was directed by Oxide Pang and starred Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Saskia Reeves.