Remember Me - Hardcover

Azzopardi, Trezza

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1552635724 ISBN 13: 9781552635728

Publisher: Key Porter Books, 2004

Synopsis

"Winnie would say she's no trouble. She's content to let the days go by, minding her own business, bothering no one. She'd rather not recall the past and, at seventy-two, doesn't see much point in thinking about the future. But when her closed existence is shattered by a random act of violence, Winnie is catapulted out of her exile. Robbed of everything she owns, she embarks on a journey to track down the thief - only to find that what began as a search for stolen belongings has become the rediscovery of a stolen life." Winnie unearths the betrayals which have marked her from the very beginning - constant family upheaval, the separations inflicted by war, and the days leading up to her 'fall'. Winnie is an unforgettable heroine, and her account of displacement and exclusion gives voice to the many whose stories are so rarely heard.

About this title

About the Author

Trezza Azzopardi was born in Cardiff. She is a graduate of the creative writing school at the University of East Anglia. She is the author of Remember Me and The Hiding Place, a national bestseller and Man Booker Prize finalist. Azzopardi lives in Norwich, England.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

I’ve got to go and live with my grandfather. I don’t know him, and my father won’t be coming with me, but there’s nothing to be done. It’s been decided.

Needs must, Pats, my father says. It’s a mystery to me. He doesn’t explain the words, and I’m not allowed to question. I’m going to live with an old man that I don’t know and my father can’t abide. He used to call him That Old Devil, but now that needs must, my father doesn’t call him anything at all. I’ve never met the devil, but I’ve seen his face.

Under the stairs in the pantry there was a carton which I wasn’t allowed to touch, sitting alongside other things that weren’t touchable, like the Vim and my father’s shoe polish. The carton had got lye inside, which is poison. There was a picture of the devil on the outside, to prove it. He had a red face, red hair, pointed teeth, and a tail going up in a loop, sharp as a serving fork. He didn’t look at all like my grandfather. My mother kept a photograph of him in a silver frame on the table next to her bottles of Wincarnis. I wasn’t allowed to touch that either. The picture was in black and white. When my mother did her hair, or sometimes when she slept, I would sit on the stool by her bed and stare at him, and think about the devil inside. I reasoned that his face could be red in real life, and he wasn’t smiling, so he could easily have pointed teeth. In the photograph, he looked uncomfortable. That would be the tail, doing that: he’d be sitting on it.

Edition details

• Publisher: Key Porter Books
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1552635724
• ISBN 13: 9781552635728
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 261