- Jubilee offer: spend £10 or more on any product sold by Amazon.co.uk on or before June 6 and you can buy The Diamond Jubilee A Classical Celebration Album for just £2.50 Here's how (terms and conditions apply)
| ||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Lara for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
The Independent
'A moving epic of restlessness and desire written with lyrical beauty and highly resonant images.' Well Worth Reading, Best of Black & Asian Writing. 'The linguistically exultant Lara is a true discovery.'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
LARA is a wonderful piece - extraordinarily beautiful - rich and evocative - fascinating in its span of time and continents. Like all the best writing, by the end I felt not only a little older, but a lot wiser. --Andrea Levy
A short, lyrical, vividly real novel-in-verse, dipping 150 years into the past to explore the family history of a British woman with a Nigerian father and English mother. It's funny, touching, informative, passionate and very easy to read. If you're tired of novels that all seem the same, this one's a complete original. --Daily Telegraph (Books of the Year)
Adventurous, compelling and utterly original. --The Times on Bernardine Evaristo
A short, lyrical, vividly real novel-in-verse, dipping 150 years into the past to explore the family history of a British woman with a Nigerian father and English mother. It's funny, touching, informative, passionate and very easy to read. If you're tired of novels that all seem the same, this one's a complete original. --Daily Telegraph (Books of the Year)
Adventurous, compelling and utterly original. --The Times on Bernardine Evaristo
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
'Lara' is a wonderfully lyrical read rich in imagery, and a real novel for the millenium.This is a story of Britain and British life that is only now beginning to be told. A great read for any thirtysomething - who can remember the akwardness of school discos and the era of 'shang-a-lang'. Lara, the title character, like many British citizens has roots in a diaspora, the acknowledgement of which, in the face of all-pervasive 'englishness', becomes her essential self-defining salvation. 'Lara' is innovative in form, without being a difficult read. It's funny, insightful, brilliantly constructed - and the best read you'll have in a long time. Watch out for Ms. Evaristo - the empire writes back!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
LARA is a truly original book. Fusing poetry and fiction, history and myth, it tells of a young girl's family experience, crossing generations and continents. From her Irish great-grandmother's English aspirations and her Nigerian grandfather's Brazilian slave legacy, through the 'mixed race' marriage of her parents in the wake of the British Empire, we are eventually drawn into the young life of Lara herself, growing up in the all-white London suburb of Woolwich in the 1970s. In varyingly hilarious and poetic form, the book traces these seemingly disparate histories, whilst describing Lara's struggle to resolve the multiple presences within herself:
"I longed for an image, a story, to speak me, to birth me whole. Living in my skin, I was, but which one?"
The novel builds a web of beautiful fusions, bringing magic to the mundane and accessibility to the mysterious and unknown. Richly textured, and better with each reread, this is a powerful and moving book not to be missed. Be prepared to laugh, cry, wonder and be inspired.
Review by Jana Newland
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A friend gave me Lara for Christmas and at first I wasn't sure what to expect as it is a verse novel and I've never read one before. I was more than pleasantly surprised. Lara is a most astonishing book, full of surprises and inventiveness, and although I found it easy to read I also wanted to slow down and savour the writing. The characterisation is amazing, sometimes summing up the essence of a character in a few wonderfully poetic words. The beauty of the writing is breathtaking and it felt like I was in a dream being taken across centuries and continents. The story had depth and clarity, passion and wisdom and by the time I had finished it I wanted to go back and read it again, to savour every word again and experience the joy of reading it again. In fact I am now on to my third reading. The story also says much about the mixed-race experience and about mixed marriages. In fact miscegenation is at the core of the book - how a Nigerian and a white British woman marry and fare in a racially hostile London in the 50s, 60s and 70s and how one of their children Lara, comes to terms with her dual heritage. But the book has much to say to everyone and transcends boundaries of race and nationality. There are no stereotyped baddies or goodies, more, why people do the things they do, is explored Their are passages of description which are so vivid I was there, I could see it, smell it, touch it. There are moments in the book which are hysterically funny and I had to laugh out loud, and their are moments where the pain turned my stomach. I think this has to be one of the most significant books produced this century. The writer has the depth, clarity and vision expected of one of the century's great writers and I am sure we will be hearing a lot more about her.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
The real thing, and fabulous
A beautiful, touching, exciting and surprising 'fictional biography' of a mixed race family that ranks with The Emperor's Babe, Bernardine Evaristo's most brilliant book. Read more
Published on 9 Jan 2010 by Literature lover
Where characters resonate with the people down your street.
There are Laras and Taiwos and Ellens and Ediths everywhere. Young girls who hate their hair because it's not fashionable, old ladies who serve tea in fine China while their... Read more
Published on 10 Mar 1999
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
