Blue Poppies (Advanced Reading Copy/ARC)

Jonathan Falla weaves a powerful tale of love and war, exile and homecoming...and of one man’s desire to lose himself in a foreign land, only to find himself caught in a time of chaos and change.

Blue Poppies

The year is 1950 and, as the world recovers from the ravages of World War II, the Chinese army is perched on the border of a fragile land awaiting its destiny. Jamie Wilson, a young Scottish wireless operator and veteran of the war, has just arrived in the remote Tibetan village of Jyeko. He has come on business--to establish a radio outpost--but his journey will resonate much more deeply.

Like those who have traveled to this place before him, Jamie, the Ying-gi-li, is mesmerized by the majestic mountain ranges and enigmatic people, but he will also find an uncommon refuge in its unyielding beauty and in the arms of the willful Puton, a young widow cast out by the people of Jyeko. Inexorably drawn together by a shared loneliness, Jamie and Puton discover a rare passion and the promise of reconnection and belonging--until the voice of Radio Peking crackles over the airwaves, announcing the imminent advance of the Chinese army. Amid the ensuing violence and tumult, Jamie and Puton must embrace their fate and that of the remarkable land that has brought them together. What lies before them and the people of Jyeko is a harrowing journey across a breathtaking landscape...and an extraordinary tale of pride and loyalty, survival and awakening.

Jonathan Falla has written award-winning dramas for stage and film, and has also written criticism, works on ethnography, musicology, travel, and medical journalism, with articles appearing in The Economist and The Times Literary Supplement. As a nurse, Falla has worked with aid agencies, including Save the Children, in countries in crisis all over the world--Nepal, Sudan, Burma, Uganda. He is also a musician and plays the lute in a professional quartet dedicated to Renaissance Spanish, French, Italian, and Shakespearian music.

Jonathan Falla makes his home in Fife, Scotland with his wife and their new baby.