In the Orchard, the Swallows - Couverture souple

Hobbs, Peter

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0571279279 ISBN 13 : 9780571279272

Editeur : Faber & Faber, 2012

Synopsis

In the foothills of a mountain range in northern Pakistan is a beautiful orchard. Swallows wheel and dive silently over the branches, and the scent of jasmine threads through the air. Pomegranates hang heavy, their skins darkening to a deep crimson. Neglected now, the trees are beginning to grow wild, their fruit left to spoil on the branches. Many miles away, a frail young man is flung out of prison gates. Looking up, scanning the horizon for swallows in flight, he stumbles and collapses in the roadside dust. His ravaged body tells the story of fifteen years of brutality. Just one image has held and sustained him through the dark times - the thought of the young girl who had left him dumbstruck with wonder all those years ago, whose eyes were lit up with life. A tale of tenderness in the face of great and corrupt power, "In The Orchard, The Swallows" is a heartbreaking novel written in prose of exquisite stillness and beauty.

A propos du livre

Revue de presse :

'Tender, graceful but devastating ... Hobbs's gravely luminous prose delivers scenes of breath-catching beauty - or horror.' --Boyd Tonkin, Independent

'A beautiful, often painful, journey of a young man's doomed yearning for love ... I immensely enjoyed this fine novel.' --Guardian

'Beautifully pared-back and poetic prose.' --Sunday Herald

'A jewel that emits more light than seems possible ... has the timeless quality of a myth.' --Hisham Matar

'A book of great beauty - and steel ... prose that is astonishingly taut and evocative.' --Kamila Shamsie

'I think Peter Hobbs is one of the most fearless, most original and most graceful novelists at work right now ... A story of impossible and dangerous love across class, politics, and hierarchy in Pakistan and about the risks, the importance and the unexpected hospitality in the act of storytelling, it's even more proof, if we needed it after his striking debut, The Short Day Dying, of his ability to do anything he likes with voice and to treat form with the elegance and resonance that delivers both these novels as contemporary classics.' --Ali Smith, New Statesman Books of the Year

'My favourite piece of fiction this year ... This is a rare, ambitious and above all brave book. Few authors would attempt such a pure and guileless project. Fewer still could produce such a beautiful, tonic read.' -- Sarah Hall, The Big Issue in the North Books of the Year

'A terrifically fierce love story. Rarely do contemporary novels possess such refractive power and emotional sincerity. What an acute, brave book.'
--Sarah Hall

'Hobbs's prose is achingly beautiful, and the simple storytelling of the unnamed young, broken man is a touching counterpoint to the harsh landscape and social conditions under which the people of the region live.' --Irish Times

Biographie de l'auteur :

Peter Hobbs grew up in Cornwall and Yorkshire, and lives in London. His debut novel, The Short Day Dying, was published by Faber in 2005. It was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and won a Betty Trask Prize. It was also shortlisted for the 2007 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. A collection of stories, I Could Ride All Day In My Cool Blue Train, was published in 2006.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Faber & Faber
• Date d'édition: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0571279279
• ISBN 13: 9780571279272
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 160