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The Welsh Girl
On sale
27th December 2007
Price: £9.99
Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize
A Richard & Judy Book Club choice
‘A beautiful, ambitious novel . . . Emotionally resonant and perfectly rendered, I believed in every character, every sheep, every last blade of grass.’ – Ann Patchett
In 1944, a German Jewish refugee is sent to Wales to interview Rudolf Hess; in Snowdonia, a seventeen-year-old girl, the daughter of a fiercely nationalistic shepherd, dreams of the bright lights of an English city; and in a nearby POW camp, a German soldier struggles to reconcile his surrender with his sense of honour. As their lives intersect, all three will come to question where they belong and where their loyalties lie.
Peter Ho Davies’s thought-provoking and profoundly moving first novel traces a perilous wartime romance as it explores the bonds of love and duty that hold us to family, country, and ultimately our fellow man. Vividly rooted in history and landscape, THE WELSH GIRL reminds us anew of the pervasive presence of the past, and the startling intimacy of the foreign.
A Richard & Judy Book Club choice
‘A beautiful, ambitious novel . . . Emotionally resonant and perfectly rendered, I believed in every character, every sheep, every last blade of grass.’ – Ann Patchett
In 1944, a German Jewish refugee is sent to Wales to interview Rudolf Hess; in Snowdonia, a seventeen-year-old girl, the daughter of a fiercely nationalistic shepherd, dreams of the bright lights of an English city; and in a nearby POW camp, a German soldier struggles to reconcile his surrender with his sense of honour. As their lives intersect, all three will come to question where they belong and where their loyalties lie.
Peter Ho Davies’s thought-provoking and profoundly moving first novel traces a perilous wartime romance as it explores the bonds of love and duty that hold us to family, country, and ultimately our fellow man. Vividly rooted in history and landscape, THE WELSH GIRL reminds us anew of the pervasive presence of the past, and the startling intimacy of the foreign.
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Reviews
'A beautifully crafted, lyrical novel'
'Moving, memorable and beautifully written'
'Deeply felt and vividly imagined'
'Fresh and engaging...Some sentences and passages are crafted so beautifully and seemingly effortlessly that it provokes envy.'
'Quietly powerful... a fine piece of work
'His prose and the evocation of time and place are almost always of the highest order...he approaches the Second World War with a fresh and contemporary style, a gift that he shares with Kazuo Ishiguro'
'A scintillating instance of fictional imagination applied to history'
'Impressive...a compelling story in itself, but Davies's special skill lies in integrating conflicts that drive the narrative at a more intense level'
deft and graceful