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Title details for The Blindness of the Heart by Julia Franck - Available

The Blindness of the Heart

by Julia Franck
Anthea Bell
ebook
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The international phenomenon and winner of the German Book Prize. “A devastating novel about war, love, and the art of survival” (Marie Claire).
 
Julia Franck’s unforgettable English-language debut, The Blindness of the Heart is a dark marvel of a novel by one of Europe’s freshest young voices—a family story spanning two world wars and several generations in a German family. In the devastating opening scene, a woman named Helene stands with her seven-year-old son in a provincial German railway station in 1945 amid the chaos of civilians fleeing west. Having survived with him through the horror and deprivation of the war years, she abandons him on the station platform and never returns.
 
The story quickly circles back to Helene’s childhood with her sister Martha in rural Germany, which came to an abrupt end with the outbreak of the First World War. Their father is sent to the eastern front, and their Jewish mother withdraws from the hostility of her surroundings into a state of mental confusion. As we follow Helene into adulthood, we watch riveted as the costs of survival and ill-fated love turn her into a woman capable of the unforgiveable.
 
“Enthralling, richly imagined and remorseless.” —The New York Times Book Review
 
“Spellbinding . . . The young woman at the center of Julia Franck’s acclaimed novel The Blindness of the Heart ranks among the most haunting characters to be found in European fiction about twentieth-century horrors . . . At times, the novel feels more like an eyewitness account than historical fiction.” —Vogue
 
“Disturbing, original, and brilliant.” —Guardian (Best Books of 2009)
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Publisher: Grove Atlantic

OverDrive Read

  • ISBN: 9780802196217
  • Release date: October 5, 2010

EPUB ebook

  • ISBN: 9780802196217
  • File size: 2696 KB
  • Release date: October 5, 2010
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OverDrive Read
EPUB ebook

subjects

Fiction Literature Historical Fiction

Languages

English

The international phenomenon and winner of the German Book Prize. “A devastating novel about war, love, and the art of survival” (Marie Claire).
 
Julia Franck’s unforgettable English-language debut, The Blindness of the Heart is a dark marvel of a novel by one of Europe’s freshest young voices—a family story spanning two world wars and several generations in a German family. In the devastating opening scene, a woman named Helene stands with her seven-year-old son in a provincial German railway station in 1945 amid the chaos of civilians fleeing west. Having survived with him through the horror and deprivation of the war years, she abandons him on the station platform and never returns.
 
The story quickly circles back to Helene’s childhood with her sister Martha in rural Germany, which came to an abrupt end with the outbreak of the First World War. Their father is sent to the eastern front, and their Jewish mother withdraws from the hostility of her surroundings into a state of mental confusion. As we follow Helene into adulthood, we watch riveted as the costs of survival and ill-fated love turn her into a woman capable of the unforgiveable.
 
“Enthralling, richly imagined and remorseless.” —The New York Times Book Review
 
“Spellbinding . . . The young woman at the center of Julia Franck’s acclaimed novel The Blindness of the Heart ranks among the most haunting characters to be found in European fiction about twentieth-century horrors . . . At times, the novel feels more like an eyewitness account than historical fiction.” —Vogue
 
“Disturbing, original, and brilliant.” —Guardian (Best Books of 2009)
Expand title description text
Fiction Literature Historical Fiction
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