Hunger - Hardcover

Elise Blackwell

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0434011762 ISBN 13: 9780434011766

Publisher: William Heinemann, 2003

Synopsis

When German troops surround Leningrad and cut off food supplies in the autumn of 1941, no one imagines that the siege will last almost three years and take hundreds of thousands of lives. As the first 'hungry winter' sets in, the city's residents strip the bark off trees, boil and eat moss-covered stones, and trade priceless antiques for half a loaf of bread - and sex for a chunk of sugar. But the scientists at the Institute of Plant Industry pledge to protect their collection of rare seeds, painstakingly gathered from all over the world, no matter what the human cost. But as the siege continues, the group divides into those who would preserve their principles at the price of starvation, and others who turn to deception - and more sinister measures - to survive. This is a powerful, stunningly precise and beautifully written novel about human nature under life's harshest pressures. Reminiscent of Rachel Seiffert's "The Dark Room" and Bernhard Schlink's "The Reader" in its brevity, spareness and power, it is a quite remarkable debut.

About this title

About the Author

Elise Blackwell lives in Boise, Idaho, with her husband and four-year-old daughter Esme.

Review

As a first novel, Hunger stands on its own: spare, searing
a finely angled vision into hell, a spare portrait of the banality of survival.”
Philadelphia Inquirer

A striking debut a wrenching existential drama that Blackwell handles
with spare prose and abundant compassion.” Elle

A riveting fictional account, based on real events... a poignant look at a wrenching period of history.” Chicago Tribune

An exquisite little book . . . Blackwell craftily weaves history and botany through this utterly devourable narrative . . . a multicolored treat.” Los Angeles Times

A remarkable, fact-based story of heroism and self-sacrifice under the harshest of war’s privations [and] of the desperate will to survive. . . . The prose of Hunger is terse, stripped to essentials, but it produces a lilting, nearly poetic quality. The detail is exacting and freshly presented. . . . A compelling exploration of the moral chasm that war can create.” Bookpage

In Elise Blackwell’s original and engrossing short novel, Leningrad during the German siege forms the background for an exploration of love and betrayal, as well as for some richly sensual evocations of the pleasures of eating.” J.M. Coetzee, Booker Prize winning author of Disgrace
and Life and Times of Michael K

All the more chilling for its poetic economy, HUNGER captures a sweeping catastrophe through one man’s tale of belated conscience. It is a haunting reminder that history has no mercy, that no matter how lofty our circumstances or our ideals, we may be tested terribly at any moment by the times in which we live.” Julie Glass, author of Three Junes

An eccentric, courageous and poetic study of human beings in extremis.”
Julia Blackburn, author of The Leper’s Companions and Old Man Goya

...a lucid, serene style, which contrasts with her grim subject matter and increases its nightmarish quality .a profoundly disturbing reality.” Wall Street Journal

Insightful and gripping... Hunger examines both the limitations and the possibilities of the human character... Fascinating.” San Francisco Chronicle

About this edition

• Publisher: William Heinemann
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0434011762
• ISBN 13: 9780434011766
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1