An Exclusive Love: A Memoir - Rilegato

Adorján, Johanna

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 1846554543 ISBN 13: 9781846554544

Casa editrice: Harvill Secker, 2011

Riassunto

One Sunday morning in October, István and his wife Vera start their day as usual. They tidy their house; Vera makes a festive cake to put in the freezer and cuts fresh roses for a vase in the living room. That evening, after nearly fifty years of marriage, they lie down in the bed that they share and take their own lives. Having survived the tumult of twentieth-century Europe and after raising a family together, they could not accept the words 'until death do us part'.

Vera and István met at a recital in Budapest in 1940, and from that moment Vera knew that he was the man she would marry. A deep and abiding friendship grew between them. While sifting through the fragments of the family history in an attempt to understand this glamorous and enigmatic couple, their granddaughter Johanna Adorján imagines their final day. Amid the family stories and portraits by friends, she dares to give voice to their never-mentioned experiences in the Holocaust and their escape from Hungary during the uprising of 1956.

An Exclusive Love is both a love story and a journey of self-understanding, beautifully told and shot through with tender humour. It is a history at once personal and universal, a tale of memory, belonging and devotion.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

"Wonderful, extraordinary" (Judith Kerr)

"I was very much moved by An Exclusive Love - such clarity of thought and feeling. What I think of Anthea Bell as a translator is little short of reverence, after what she did for W. G. Sebald: one trusts her absolutely, so I know for sure that Johanna Adorján writes with beautiful precision and suppleness. It's a truly memorable book." (Diana Athill)

"The fact that the author does not tire in inquiring into this riddle, that she scrutinizes everything anew, courageously and with a biting wit, makes her book about a grim Sunday a sparkling work." (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)

"[A] story that is troubling in its immediacy, and which, via an intuitive sensitivity, captures a striking truth... Very simply, without pathos, without artifice, this personal account is written with the infinite gentleness of sorrow that has found peace." (Le Monde)

"A wonderful, extraordinary book" (Judith Kerr)

Descrizione del libro:

A moving and topical love story about a young woman who seeks to unravel the mysteries of her grandparents' tragic decision.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Harvill Secker
• Data di pubblicazione: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1846554543
• ISBN 13: 9781846554544
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 192