Undertaking - Couverture souple

Magee, Audrey

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1782391037 ISBN 13 : 9781782391036

Editeur : Atlantic Books, 2014

Synopsis

This is an immensely powerful first novel set in Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II, its ambition and achievement reminiscent of Rachel Seiffert's The Dark Room, Hans Fallada's Alone in Berlin, Bernhard Schlink's The Reader and Helen Dunmore's The Siege. Desperate to escape the Eastern front, Peter Faber, an ordinary German soldier, marries Katharina Spinell, a woman he has never met; it is a marriage of convenience that promises 'honeymoon' leave for him and a pension for her should he die on the front. With ten days' leave secured, Peter visits his new wife in Berlin; both are surprised by the attraction that develops between them. When Peter returns to the horror of the front, it is only the dream of Katharina that sustains him as he approaches Stalingrad. Back in Berlin, Katharina, goaded on by her desperate and delusional parents, ruthlessly works her way into the Nazi party hierarchy, wedding herself, her young husband and their unborn child to the regime. But when the tide of war turns and Berlin falls, Peter and Katharina, ordinary people stained with their small share of an extraordinary guilt, find their simple dream of family increasingly hard to hold on to...

A propos du livre

Revue de presse

Sweeping, powerful, epic --The Times
Brutal but brilliant... Full of heart-pounding suspense... Magee offers an insight both into the deprivation experienced by ordinary soldiers and the excesses of those in power... An impressive, even stunning debut' --Sunday Times (Ireland)
An engaging and beautifully written novel, with an emotional resonance that remains long after you've closed the book. It succeeds in doing what only the best historical novels can do - making the past feel present --Independent
A novel made all the more harrowing by its extreme readability --Observer
A violent, elegant, unsentimental journey through hell and halfway back. This is an outstanding novel by a writer of huge talent and unusual candour. --Chris Cleave
The Undertaking is written with sympathy and skill. The narrative is tense and engaging, filled with complex undertones, impelled by an urgency and a deep involvement with the characters. --Colm Tóibín
A bold and unsettling feat of empathy, all the more daring for its taut, beautifully understated style --A.D. Miller

A bold and unsettling feat of empathy, all the more daring for its taut, beautifully understated style --A.D Miller
I read her book with awe -- Fergal Keane

Justifies all the hype --The Scotsman

Présentation de l'éditeur

Brutal yet heartbreaking, The Undertaking is an immensely powerful first novel set in Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II

Desperate to escape the Eastern front, Peter Faber, an ordinary German soldier, marries Katharina Spinell, a woman he has never met; it is a marriage of convenience that promises "honeymoon" leave for him and a pension for her should he die on the front. With ten days' leave secured, Peter visits his new wife in Berlin, and both are surprised by the attraction that develops between them.

When Peter returns to the horror of the front, it is only the dream of Katharina that sustains him as he approaches Stalingrad. Back in Berlin, Katharina, goaded on by her desperate and delusional parents, ruthlessly works her way into the Nazi party hierarchy, wedding herself, her young husband and their unborn child to the regime. But when the tide of war turns and Berlin falls, Peter and Katharina, ordinary people stained with their small share of an extraordinary guilt, find their simple dream of family increasingly hard to hold on to . . .

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Atlantic Books
• Date d'édition: 2014
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1782391037
• ISBN 13: 9781782391036
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 286
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
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