Scenes from Early Life by Philip Hensher
Beautifully packed with detail . . . Does for Bangladesh what Rushdie did for India. --The Sunday Times
From the Man Booker-short-listed author of The Northern Clemency, a family and a nation--Bangladesh--are forged through storytelling, conversation, jokes, feuds, blood, songs, bravery, and sacrifice.
In late 1970 a boy named Saadi is born into a large, defiantly Bengali family in eastern Pakistan. Months later the country splits in two in what will become one of the most ferocious twentieth-century civil wars. Saadi tells the story of his childhood and of the ingenious ways his family survived the violence and conflicts: from his aunts stuffing him with sweets to stop marauding soldiers from hearing him cry, to street games based on American television shows; from the basement compartment his grandfather built to hide his treasured books, pictures, and music until after the war, to the daily gossip about each and every one of the relatives, servants, and neighbors. Scenes from Early Life is a beautifully detailed novel of profound empathy--an attempt to capture the collective memory of a family and a country.
At once heartbreaking and surprisingly funny, Scenes from Early Life is based on the life of Philip Hensher's husband, and as such it is at once a memoir, a novel, and a history. As this remarkable writer brings the past to life, we come to feel, vividly and viscerally, that Saadi's family--and its struggles and triumphs--are our own.
Philip Hensher is an Independent journalist, a Spectator arts critic, and one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. He has published eight novels and one collection of short stories, including The Mulberry Empire, King of the Badgers, and The Northern Clemency, which was nominated for the Man Booker Prize. He splits his time between South London and Geneva.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780865478053 |
| ISBN 10 | 0865478058 |
| Title | Scenes from Early Life |
| Author | Philip Hensher |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| Year published | 2014-01-07 |
| Number of pages | 320 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |