Birds Without WingsLouis de BerniresVintageDecember 18, 2007Louis de Berniress last novel, Corellis Mandolin, was met with the highest praise: Behind every page, said Richard Russo, we sense its authors intelligence, wit, heart, imagination, and wisdom. This is a great book. A. S. Byatt placed the author in the direct line that runs through Dickens and Evelyn Waugh. Now, de Bernires gives us his long-awaited new novel. Huge, resonant, lyrical, filled with humor and pathos, a novel about the political and personal costs of war, and of lovebetween men and women, between friends, between those who are driven to be enemies.It is the story of a small coastal town in South West Anatolia in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire told in the richly varied voices of the peopleChristians and Muslims of Turkish and Greek and Armenian descentwhose lives are rooted there, intertwined for untold years. There is Iskander, the potter and local font of proverbial wisdom; KaratavukIskanders sonand Mehmetik, childhood friends whose playground stretches across the hills above the town, where Mehmetik teaches the illiterate Karatavuk to write Turkish in Greek letters. There are Father Kristoforos and Abdulhamid Hodja, holy men of different faiths who greet each other as Infidel Efendi; Rustem Bey, the landlord and protector of the town, whose wife is stoned for the sin of adultery. There is a man known as the Dog because of his hideous aspect, who lives among the Lycian tombs; and another known as the Blasphemer, who wanders the town cursing God and all of his representatives of all faiths. And there is Philothei, the Christian girl of legendary beauty, courted from infancy by Ibrahim the goatherda great love that culminates in tragedy and madness. But Birds Without Wings is also the story of Mustafa Kemal, whose military genius will lead him to victory against the invading Western European forces of the Great War and a reshaping of the whole region. When the young men of the town are conscripted, we follow Karatavuk to Gallipoli, where the intimate brutality of battle robs him of all innocence. And in the town he left behind, we see how the twin scourges of fanatical religion and nationalism unleashed by the war quickly, and irreversibly, destroy the fabric of centuries-old peace.Epic in its narrative sweepsteeped in historical factyet profoundly humane and dazzlingly evocative in its emotional and sensual detail, Birds Without Wings is a triumph.From the Hardcover edition. About the AuthorLouis de Berniress first three novels are The War of Don Emmanuels Nether Parts (Commonwealth Writers Prize, Best First Book Eurasia Region, 1991), Seor Vivo and the Coca Lord (Commonwealth Writers Prize, Best Book Eurasia Region, 1992), and The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman. The author was selected by Granta as one of the twenty Best of Young British Novelists in 1993. Corellis Mandolin won the Commonwealth Writers Prize, Best Book, in 1995. His last book was Red Dog, published in 2001.From the Trade Paperback edition.About ScrollmotionScrollMotion, creator of the Iceberg Reader, is a content technology company based in New York City. For more information, visit www.scrollmotion.com.SupportIf you have any technical problems please email us at icebergsupport@scrollmotion.com before you post a review.
