The Hunters by Claire Messud

The Hunters by Claire Messud

In two jewel-like novellas, Claire Messud explores isolation and the nature of love. A Simple Tale is the moving story of Maria Poniatowski, an aging Ukrainian woman who, after liberation from servitude to the Germans, struggles with a new life in Canada. What of the past is she able to preserve, without burdening her present? The Hunters, the second novella, tells the story of an American academic in London who grows obsessed with the neighbors downstairs. Loneliness breeds an active imagination, one that may be destructive.

Claire Messud was born in 1966 in the United States. She received her education at Yale and Cambridge. When the World Was Steady, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Prize in 1996, and The Last Life, a well appreciated novel that has been translated into multiple languages, are two of her novels.