The Shadow Land - Rilegato

Elizabeth Kostova

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 1911231103 ISBN 13: 9781911231103

Casa editrice: Text Publishing Company, 2017

Riassunto

A novel that blends past with present in a suspenseful journey that spans three generations and reveals the dark secrets of a family's - and a nation's - history

"This book is a train with many cars, the old kind, moving clumsily along a track at night. One car contains a small supply of coal, which spills out into the passageway when an internal door is opened... Another car contains grain, shipped for export. One car is full of musicians and instruments and cheap overnight bags, nearly half an orchestra sitting... in the seats of the second-class compartments. Another car contains bad dreams. The final train car has no seats but instead is full of sleeping men, who lie crushed together on their coats in the dark. The door to that one has been nailed shut from outside..."

Thus begins Elizabeth Kostova's spellbinding new novel about a young American woman, Alexandra Boyd, who has travelled to Sofia, Bulgaria, hoping that life abroad will salve the wounds left by the loss of her beloved brother. The year is 2003 and, soon after arriving in this elegant East European city, she helps an elderly couple into a taxi and realises too late that she has accidentally kept one of their bags. Inside she finds an ornately carved wooden box engraved with a name: Stoyan Lazarov. Raising the hinged lid, she discovers that she is holding an urn filled with human ashes.

Setting out on a journey to track down the Lazarov family and reunite them with their precious package, she finds ever more obstacles in her path even as her determination grows greater, and the mystery behind the significance of the urn deepens. Soon she will realize that this object is tied to the very darkest moments in the nation's history, and that the stakes behind seeing it safely returned are higher than she could ever have imagined.

Kostova's tale of immense scope delves into the horrors of a century and traverses the culture and landscape of the mysterious country of Bulgaria. Suspenseful and beautifully written, it explores the power of stories, the pull of the past, and the hope and meaning that can sometimes be found in the aftermath of loss.

Su questo libro

Recensione

"The Shadow Land is thrilling, and not just as a gripping tale. It's also thrilling to watch such a talented writer cast her spell. The central character actually begins this deft novel in an urn, only to emerge as one of the most memorable characters I've encountered in a long time." - Richard Russo

"Fans will keep coming back for her authentic detail, her scope, and her sense of suspense." - Guardian

"Her encounters peel back Bulgaria's troubled recent history and comprise the biography of a nation as much of as a family... beautifully written, gently gripping novel. " - Daily Mail

"The aftermath of loss, the haunting beauty of Bulgaria and an unsettling mystery surrounding an urn of human ashes all come together in Elizabeth Kostova's elegantly written novel...Written with great zest and beautifully descriptive detail, making the soul of this novel, The Shadow Land is a fascinating, moreish read, demonstrating the power of a great story." - Readers Digest

"A capacious, Victorian-esque novel with more than a whisper of romance, it deftly conveys the beauty and mystery of this ancient land, all the while ensnaring you in a web of intrigue which encompasses the darkest horrors of Bulgaria's hidden history." - West Australian

"Elizabeth Kostova's novel brings the modern history of Bulgaria into focus. The novel is the product of experience as well as imagination...It threads tantalising strands of romance, as well as more opaque examples of heroism." --Otago Daily Times

Praise for The Historian

"Quite extraordinary... Kostova is a natural storyteller... She has refashioned the vampire myth into a compelling contemporary novel, a late-night page-turner." -- San Francisco Chronicle

"Hypnotic... a thrill ride through history." -- The Denver Post

"Part thriller, part history, part romance... Kostova has a keen sense of storytelling and she has a marvelous story to tell." -- Baltimore Sun

"Kostova's vampire is no campy Lugosi knockoff... Blending history and myth, Kostova has fashioned a version so fresh that when a stake is finally driven through a heart, it inspires the tragic shock of something happening for the very first time." -- Newsweek

Praise for The Swan Thieves

"Exquisite." -- The Boston Globe

"Engrossing." -- O: The Oprah Magazine

"Stunning... A beautifully written tale of art, love and an obsession triggered by both." --Associated Press

L'autore

Elizabeth Kostova is the number one New York Times bestselling author of The Historian (Little, Brown & Co, 2005) - selling over half a million copies in the the UK - for which she won the 2006 Book Sense Award for Best Adult Fiction. She also won the 2005 Quill Award for Debut Author of the Year. Her follow-up, The Swan Thieves (Sphere, 2010), sold over 50,000 copies in the UK. She graduated from Yale and holds an MFA from the University of Michigan, where she won the Hopwood Award for Novel-in-Progress.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Text Publishing Company
• Data di pubblicazione: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1911231103
• ISBN 13: 9781911231103
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 504