Dear Austen by Nina Bawden
Accidents happen to other people. But on On May 10th 2002, Nina Bawden discovered what it feels like to be one of the 'other people'. It was to be a lovely outing to Cambridge for a friend's birthday party. Nina Bawden and her husband Austen Kark boarded the 12:45 from Kings Cross and settled down with their books and papers. A few minutes later the train derailed. Seven people were killed and 76 badly hurt. Nina Bawden was gravely injured and Austen was killed instantly. In this powerful and poignant letter to her husband, Nina Bawden uses her considerable writing skills to try and make sense of it all. She explains how she - now in her late 70s - found herself the outspoken spokesperson for the survivors of the crash, interviewed here and abroad and even one of the characters portrayed in David Hare's The Permanent Way. Although liability has finally been admitted, as of October 2004, there has been no resolution to this tragedy, nor a public enquiry into how it happened.
Superb, unforgettable * Sunday TIMES *
Poignant. . always crisp and to the point. . . Bawden is to be applauded for bringing the facts to our attention * DAILY MAIL *
Bawden's style is impeccable, her language temperate. Every MP and every Department of Transport civil servant should read this book at least once * SPECTATOR 'Bawden, who writes plainly but quite beautifully, never raises her voice...She doesn’t need to’ *
INDEPENDENT * 'Dear Austen is a polemic, a personal lament and an elegy for a better age’ *
Poignant. . always crisp and to the point. . . Bawden is to be applauded for bringing the facts to our attention * DAILY MAIL *
Bawden's style is impeccable, her language temperate. Every MP and every Department of Transport civil servant should read this book at least once * SPECTATOR 'Bawden, who writes plainly but quite beautifully, never raises her voice...She doesn’t need to’ *
INDEPENDENT * 'Dear Austen is a polemic, a personal lament and an elegy for a better age’ *
Nina Bawden (1925-2012) was one of Britain's best-loved writers for both adults and children. Several of her children's books - Carrie's War, a Phoenix Award winner;The Peppermint Pig, which won the Guardian Fiction Award; and Keeping Henry - have become contemporary classics. She wrote over forty novels, slightly more than half of which are for adults, and she was shortlisted for the 1987 Man Booker Prize for Circles of Deceit. She received the prestigious S T Dupont Golden Pen Award for a lifetime's contribution to literature in 2004, and in 2010 The Birds on the Trees was shortlisted for the Lost Booker of 1970.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781844082162 |
| ISBN 10 | 1844082164 |
| Title | Dear Austen |
| Author | Nina Bawden |
| Series | Virago Modern Classics |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Little, Brown Book Group |
| Year published | 2006-03-02 |
| Number of pages | 144 |
| Prizes | Short-listed for PEN Ackerley Prize 2006 (UK) |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |