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In the port of Alexandria, a very long time ago, Julius Caesar impregnated and then abandoned Cleopatra. The child of their union – groomed for greatness by his devoted mother but destined for tragedy – was called Caesarion. Little Caesar. History repeats itself, first as tragedy then as farce. In our time, another boy, Ludwig, is born in Alexandria and again the father flees the scene of the birth. The boy and his mother are soon obliged to move on. She, Marthe, is stormy, impetuous and vain. She will not rest until she finds their ideal home – which needs to be both dramatic and cheap. And so Ludwig and his mother end up on a clifftop in Suffolk in a house being eaten from the inside...
Two venturesome women on a journey through the land of their fathers and mothers. A wrong turn. A bad decision. They had no idea, when they arrived in Morocco, that their usual freedoms as young European women would not be available. So, when the spry Saleh presents himself as their guide and saviour, they embrace his offer. He extracts them from a tight space, only to lead them inexorably into an even tighter one: and from this far darker space there is no exit. Their tale of confinement and escape is as old as the landscapes and cultures so vividly depicted in this story of where Europe and Africa come closest to meeting, even if they never quite touch.
WINNER OF THE 2015 ENGLISH PEN AWARD LONGLISTED FOR THE 2017 INTERNATIONAL DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD LONGLISTED FOR THE 2015 GREGOR VON REZZORI AWARD A border town on the steppe. A small group of emaciated and feral refugees appears out of nowhere, spreading fear and panic in the town. When police commissioner Pontus Beg orders their arrest, evidence of a murder is found in their luggage. As he begins to unravel the history of their hellish journey, it becomes increasingly intertwined with the search for his own origins that he has embarked upon. Now he becomes the group’s inquisitor … and, finally, something like their saviour. Beg’s likeability as a character and his dry-eyed musings con...
A crash of a novel - a crackingly entertaining story about two boys, one wheelchair, and a friendship that propels them headfirst into maturity.
‘He had never married and had never been with one woman for long; he had always remained a collector of first times.’ Edward Landauer, a brilliant microbiologist in his forties, meets a beautiful young woman. She is the love of his life, and when the two marry in France, Edward is the happiest man in the world. At first, Ruth Walta appears to represent a victory over time, but even she cannot stop him growing older. After the birth of their long-awaited son, the ‘happiness, delicate like filigree’ turns into something new, and Edward no longer recognises his great romance nor the woman who induced it. PRAISE FOR TOMMY WIERINGA ‘Brilliantly written … the last few pages are mesmerising.’ The Saturday Age ‘While the narrative focuses on the collapse of one man’s world, it still raises huge moral questions … Haunting.’ The Sunday Times
Publisher description
A border town on the steppe. A small group of emaciated and feral refugees appears out of nowhere, spreading fear and panic in the town. When police commissioner Pontus Beg orders their arrest, evidence of a murder is found in their luggage. As he begins to unravel the history of their hellish journey, it becomes increasingly intertwined with the search for his own origins that he has embarked upon. Now he becomes the group’s inquisitor … and, finally, something like their saviour. Beg’s likeability as a character and his dry-eyed musings considering the nature of religion keep the reader pinned to the page from the start. At the same time, the apocalyptic atmosphere of the group’s exodus across the steppes becomes increasingly vivid and laden with meaning as the novel proceeds, in seeming synchronicity with the development of Beg’s character. With a rare blend of humour and wisdom, Tommy Wieringa links man’s dark nature with the question of who we are and whether redemption is possible.
‘He had seen more and more people from the East in recent years. Mostly gypsies, people said. Bulgarians, Romanians — you could tell by the plates on the vans and the trailers. The Poles had been around for some time already. Burglaries, thefts. The blessings of the new Europe.’ Paul Krüzen lives with his father in an old farmhouse, not far from the German border. Where once his father took care of him, now he takes care of his father. It has been a long time since his beautiful, worldly-wise mother left them for the arms of a Russian pilot, never once looking back. Paul’s world is changing: his small Dutch village is now home to Chinese restaurateurs, Polish plumbers, and Russian t...
From the international bestselling author of These Are the Names: “A brilliant exploration of the uneasy transition from adolescence into adulthood” (The Independent). After a decade away, gifted young pianist Ludwig Unger returns to his hometown of Kings Ness, England, where the houses are on the verge of falling into the sea. With little else but a plastic bag filled with his mother’s ashes, Ludwig hopes to make amends with his lonely past and say goodbye to the familial ghosts that still haunt him. Ludwig’s mother tried to create a normal life for him after his father abandoned them, but Ludwig grew up in her shadow, developing an obsession with her and her sensual allure. When he...
It is 1939. Eva Delectorskaya is a beautiful 28-year-old Russian émigrée living in Paris. As war breaks out she is recruited for the British Secret Service by Lucas Romer, a mysterious Englishman, and under his tutelage she learns to become the perfect spy, to mask her emotions and trust no one, including those she loves most. Since the war, Eva has carefully rebuilt her life as a typically English wife and mother. But once a spy, always a spy. Now she must complete one final assignment, and this time Eva can't do it alone: she needs her daughter's help.