Review
Compelling, humane... a novel of remarkable delicacy and power.... Its central subject how personal and collective histories mesh has never been more vital. --Michael Symmons Roberts
A story to be passed on, and one that would bear any number of re-readings to mine its many layers of meaning. --Suzie Ceulan Hughes, www.gwales.com
A story to be passed on, and one that would bear any number of re-readings to mine its many layers of meaning. --Suzie Ceulan Hughes, www.gwales.com
Product Description
Set in Split, Zagreb and Hvar in the Forties and the Nineties, sculptor Antun and student Dagmar are separately seeking truths about their parents. The novel explores how a country like Croatia could implode into violence; how history is still a living (and unspent) force for many, and how, when so much has been destroyed, may a future re-emerge.
About the Author
Penny Simpson is the 2008 winner of the Rhys Davies Short Story Competition and TMA Critic of the Year. Her short fiction will feature in the Dalkey Archive Press (US) collection, Best European Fiction, 2010. She is a Fellow of the Hawthenden International Writers Centre, 2009 and has received two writers' bursaries, from the Arts Council of Wales and Academi. The unanimously positive reviews of her first novel, The Banquet of Esther Rosenbaum, include media such as the TLS, Jewish Book World (USA), New Welsh Review and Morning Star. Banquet was chosen by Welsh Literature Exchange for their 2008 Showcase. Penny was named by Mslexia as a Woman to Watch for 2009.
