A Partisan's Daughter - Hardcover

De Bernieres, Louis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 030726887X ISBN 13: 9780307268877

Publisher: Knopf, 2008

Synopsis

From the acclaimed author of Corelli’s Mandolin and Birds Without Wings (“de Bernières has reached heights that few modern novelists ever attempt” —The Washington Post Book World) comes an intimate new novel, a love story at once raw and sweetly funny, wry and heartbreakingly sad.

He’s Chris: bored, lonely, trapped in a loveless, sexless marriage. In his forties, he’s a stranger inside the youth culture of London in the late 1970s, a stranger to himself on the night he invites a hooker into his car.

She’s Roza: Yugoslavian, recently moved to London, the daughter of one of Tito’s partisans. She’s in her twenties but has already lived a life filled with danger, misadventure, romance, and tragedy. And although she’s not a hooker, when she’s propositioned by Chris, she gets into his car anyway.

Over the next months Roza tells Chris the stories of her past. She’s a fast-talking, wily Scheherazade, saving her own life by telling it to Chris. And he takes in her tales as if they were oxygen in an otherwise airless world. But is Roza telling the truth? Does Chris hear the stories through the filter of his own need? Does it even matter?

This deeply moving novel of their unlikely love—narrated both in the moment and in recollection, each of their voices deftly realized—is also a brilliantly subtle commentary on storytelling: its seductions and powers, and its ultimately unavoidable dangers.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

The new audiobook from the acclaimed author of Birds Without Wings and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin is a love story at once raw and sweetly funny, wry and heartbreakingly sad.

Chris is bored, lonely, trapped in a loveless, sexless marriage. In his forties, he’s a stranger to the 1970s youth culture of London, a stranger to himself on the night he invites a hooker into his car.

Roza is Yugoslavian, recently moved to London, the daughter of one of Tito’s partisans. She’s in her twenties, but has already lived a life filled with danger, misadventure, romance, and tragedy. And though she’s not a hooker, when she’s propositioned by Chris, she gets into his car anyway.

Over the next few months Roza tells Chris the stories of her past. She’s a fast-talking Scheherazade, saving her own life by telling it to Chris. And he takes in her tales as if they were oxygen in an otherwise airless world. But is Roza telling the truth? Does Chris hear the stories through the filter of his own need? Does it even matter?

The deeply moving story of their unlikely love – narrated in the moment and through recollection, each of their voices deftly realized – is also a brilliantly subtle commentary on storytelling: its seductions and powers, and its ultimately unavoidable dangers.

About the Author:

Louis de Bernières has been awarded the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book Eurasia Region in 1991 and 1992, and for Best Book in 1995. He was selected by Granta as one of the twenty Best of Young British Novelists in 1993, and lives in Norfolk, East Anglia.

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 030726887X
• ISBN 13: 9780307268877
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208