Clara by Janice Galloway
In a radical departure from her previous work, Janice Galloway's new novel is based on the life of Clara Schumann: celebrated nineteenth-century concert pianist and composer, editor and teacher, friend of Brahms - who was also the wife of Robert Schumann, the mother of his eight children, and the woman who cared for him through a series of crippling mental illnesses. Whilst also being a meticulously researched account of two remarkable and highly dramatic musical careers, this is a novel primarily about timeless, common things: about the inescapable influences of childhood, about creativity and marital life, about communication and silence, about how art is made and how art, in turn, may erode or save the life that nourishes it. Dismissing the cliches of Great Art and scathing in its rejection of the romantic conflation of Madness and Creativity, Clara takes as its heart an examination of the place of love in a life of increasing isolation and alienation. Luminously written, mordantly political and disturbingly honest, Clara asks how we make a pattern of the world, what it means to be Good or Great, how scarifying choices are made, and how we endure.
An impressive novel based on the life of Clara Schumann, the celebrated 19th century composer and concert pianist, a friend of Brahms and the wife of Robert Schumann who cared for him through a series of crippling mental illnesses as well as being the mother of his eight children
Janice Galloway's books include the novels The Trick is to Keep Breathing, which won the 1990 MIND/Allen Lane Book of the Year Award, and Foreign Parts, which won the 1994 McVitie's Prize. In 1994 she also won the E.M. Forster Award, presented by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Glasgow.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780224050494 |
| ISBN 10 | 0224050494 |
| Title | Clara |
| Author | Janice Galloway |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Vintage Publishing |
| Year published | 2002-06-06 |
| Number of pages | 432 |
| Prizes | Short-listed for Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Award 2003, Short-listed for Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award 2002 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |