Author:Tahar Ben Jelloun
In this extraordinary non-fiction novel, based on a true story, Tahar Ben Jelloun traces the experiences of Salim who, in 1971, took part in a failed coup attempt to oust King Hassan II of Morocco. With sixty others Salim was incarcerated in a secret prison complex in the Moroccan desert: he was to remain there for nearly twenty years.
In starkly eloquent, beautiful prose, Ben Jelloun relates the prisoners' experiences as they struggle to survive. The son of a witty, feckless courtier who disowns him, Salim tells stories to keep sane - from the suras of his beloved Koran to the plot of A Streetcar Named Desire. Even in the darkest, most terrible conditions, sympathy, insight, the human quest for meaning and understanding, never desert Salim. The resulting novel is a wrenching yet exquisite celebration of the human spirit and its determination to survive.
'A masterpiece' Judges of the IMPAC award
'a sad and splendid book' New York Times Book Review
Green paints an unforgettable portrait of a doomed, amoral world whose characters, trapped in the fog, are somehow waltzing blithely towards oblivion...cinematic in its intensity
—— Robert McCrum , GuardianHeartbreaking, funny and written with such luminous prose - he's the most brilliant, and neglected, of English writers
—— Red MagazinePerhaps the best introduction to another great original of the English novel, who learned from Firbank’s economy, but who had his own quite different imaginative world. Loving, set among the servants of an Irish country house, combines his superbly truthful ear for how people really speak with an unforgettable vein of surreal poetry
—— Alan Hollinghurst , New York TimesThe most original, the best writer of his time
—— Rebecca WestThe most gifted prose writer of his generation
—— V. S. PritchettGreen's books remain as solid and glittering as gems- They are not, like so many contemporary novels, mere slices of life but highly successful attempts at making art give meaning to life
—— Anthony BurgessAbout Henry Green, however, there’s an irreducible, longstanding excitement among the few who have read him... With Green, we’re presented with a singular kind of artist who, like the poets of ancient India and Greece, has nothing to offer us but delight. We don’t know what to do with such a writer
—— Amit Chaudhuri , GuardianPraise for Lisa Jewell
—— -Addictively readable
—— The TimesA joy . . . a fun summer read
—— GuardianThe best romantic comedy we've read in ages
—— CompanyTackles serious issues with humour - proving that chick-lit can be intelligent, interesting and huge fun
—— Sunday ExpressA triumph
—— HelloTop marks. Fantastic
—— HeatLovely
—— Daily TelegraphMoving and intelligent
—— IndependentMagnetic, unpretentious and bursting with one-liners
—— CosmopolitanFans of chick-lit will understand when I say that this is a book you simply disappear into
—— Sunday Telegraph