A01=Sybille Bedford
Author_Sybille Bedford
Autobiographical novel
Category=FBA
Coming of Age
eq_bestseller
eq_fiction
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_modern-contemporary
eq_nobargain
Europe
Interwar Period
Memoir
outsiders
Unorthodox education
Product details
- ISBN 9780907871798
- Publication Date: 24 Jun 2005
- Publisher: Eland Publishing Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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This intensely remembered, partly autobiographical novel, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1989, describes the childhood of Billi, a girl growing up in Europe between the wars. When her father dies, she swaps life in a run-down German château for an exhilarating existence with her beautiful, talented and unreliable mother on the French Riviera. Sent away to England for schooling, the gypsy-like Billi ricochets between short-lived tutors and a life of reading, friends and public lectures. Returning to the Mediterranean, her unorthodox education – intellectual, emotional and sexual – continues among the vibrant community of artists, exiles and intellectuals who have colonised the coast, coaxing her towards a life of literature.
