The Tesseract (novel)
 First edition (UK) | |
| Author | Alex Garland |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Publisher |
Viking Press (UK) Riverhead Books (US) |
Publication date | 1998 (UK), 1999 (US) |
| Media type | Print (paperback) |
| Pages | 226 |
| ISBN | 0-670-87016-1 |
| OCLC | 40360022 |
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, 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.
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.