The book consists of six nested stories each is read or observed by a main character of the next, progressing in time through the central sixth story. ( May 2023) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. This section's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Rather than being a reference to the cloud atlases used in meteorology, ) the Mitchell has stated that the title and the book address reincarnation and the universality of human nature, with the title referring to a changing landscape (a 'cloud') over manifestations of fixed human nature (the 'atlas'). Its title was inspired by the piece of music of the same name by Japanese composer Toshi Ichiyanagi. The book combines metafiction, historical fiction, contemporary fiction and science fiction, with interconnected nested stories that take the reader from the remote South Pacific in the 19th century to the island of Hawai'i in a distant post-apocalyptic future. A film adaptation directed by the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer, and featuring an ensemble cast, was released in 2012.

Unusually, it received awards from both the general literary community and the speculative fiction community. It won the British Book Awards Literary Fiction award, and the Richard & Judy Book of the Year award, and was short-listed for the Booker Prize, Nebula Award for Best Novel, and Arthur C.

Cloud Atlas, published in 2004, is the third novel by British author David Mitchell.

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