A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

New
Paperback
2014
$12.59

This is longlisted for the National Book Award 2013. In a snow-covered village in Chechnya, eight-year-old Havaa watches from the woods as her father is abducted in the middle of the night by Russian soldiers. Their life-long friend and neighbour, Akhmed, has also been watching, and when he finds Havaa he knows of only one person who might be able to help. For tough-minded doctor Sonja Rabina, it's just another day of trying to keep her bombed-out, abandoned hospital going. When Akhmed arrives with Havaa, asking Sonja for shelter, she has no idea who the pair are. But over the course of five extraordinary days, Sonja's world will shift on its axis, revealing the intricate pattern of connections that binds these three unlikely companions together and unexpectedly decides their fate. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena is simply spectacular . (Ann Patchett).

Synopsis

This is longlisted for the National Book Award 2013. In a snow-covered village in Chechnya, eight-year-old Havaa watches from the woods as her father is abducted in the middle of the night by Russian soldiers. Their life-long friend and neighbour, Akhmed, has also been watching, and when he finds Havaa he knows of only one person who might be able to help. For tough-minded doctor Sonja Rabina, it's just another day of trying to keep her bombed-out, abandoned hospital going. When Akhmed arrives with Havaa, asking Sonja for shelter, she has no idea who the pair are. But over the course of five extraordinary days, Sonja's world will shift on its axis, revealing the intricate pattern of connections that binds these three unlikely companions together and unexpectedly decides their fate. "A Constellation of Vital Phenomena is simply spectacular". (Ann Patchett).

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 432
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 06 Feb 2014
ISBN 10: 0099575574
ISBN 13: 9780099575573
Book Overview: When everything else seems lost, watch out for the unexpected ties that bind us together...
Prizes: Winner of Barnes & Noble Discover New Writers Awards - Fiction 2014. Shortlisted for PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize 2014. Long-listed for IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2015.

Media Reviews

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena is simply spectacular. Not since Everything is Illuminated have I read a first novel so ambitious and fully realized. If this is where Anthony Marra begins his career, I can't imagine how far he will go * Ann Patchett *
Storytelling of magical purity, illuminated by hope... Marra is a magnificent writer -- Vanora Bennett * The Times *
An extraordinary first novel... A 21st-century War and Peace * New York Times *
Both heart-wrenching and uplifting, a stunning, intricately plotted, brilliantly written, tour-de-force of a novel that burns into the memory * Choice *
A powerful tale... rivals anything Michael Ondaatje has written in its emotional force -- John Freeman * Boston Globe *

Author Bio

Anthony Marra's first novel was A Constellation of Vital Phenomena (2013), which won an array of prizes including the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize, the Barnes and Noble Fiction Discover Award, the Grand Prix des Lectrices de Elle and the Athens Prize for Literature, and appeared on more than twenty Books of the Year lists. This was followed by The Tsar of Love and Techno. A Granta Best of Young American Novelists 2017, a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop,a Guggenheim Fellow and Whiting Award recipient, Marra lives in Oakland, California, and teaches at Stanford University. Visit http://anthonymarra.net/.