by EnriquedeHeriz (Author)
What does it really mean to be dead? This is the question that vexes Isobel because as far as the outside world is concerned she is dead. The book springs from a case of mistaken identity. Isobel, mother of three adult children and an anthropologist has officially been pronounced dead following a boat accident in a remote part of the Guatemalan jungle. But Isobel is very much alive and is hiding in a remote shack in the jungle. She isn't ready to tell the world she's still alive and she's not sure whether she ever will. The news of her own death is especially ironic because as an anthropologist, she studies death rituals. Serena, Isobel's daughter, studies weather. Her father has some form of Alzheimer's and with her mother now supposedly dead, she is trying to write the family history before it is lost. Above all, she is obsessed with the story of Simon, her father's father who was in a shipwreck and survived three days at sea before being rescued. The story of his life has become a family legend together with the tales her father told about The Battle of Formigues and the story of Li Po. Ever since she was a child, Serena has been tantalised by these stories, always asking questions, turning the 'facts' over in her mind, always trying to piece the 'truth' together. Yet the irony is that she isn't investigating the one story she really should.
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 496
Edition: 1st Edition
Publisher: W&N
Published: 11 Jan 2007
ISBN 10: 0297851071
ISBN 13: 9780297851073
Book Overview: The book won the PREMI LLIBRETERS, which is the booksellers prize. Last year the prize was won by JM Coetzee. Over 50,000 hardcovers sold in Spain alone The publishing director of Flammarion, Patrice Hoffman, bought French rights. The publisher in Germany is the ex Suhrkamp boss who managed the Zafon success. Nan Talese bought for the States Author is young and promotable - he was an editor and translator 'A superb novel, full of intertwining stories that gives an almost comforting feeling, that of the reader intoxicated by the evocative - and equivocal - power of words' El Pais 'Simply wonderful...I highly recommend reading' ABC