Product details
- ISBN 9780241442906
- Weight: 142g
- Dimensions: 130 x 198mm
- Publication Date: 05 Nov 2020
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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A gorgeous, tender modern classic about the complexities of love, with an introduction from the Booker-winning author John Banville
Stefan Valeriu, a young Romanian student, holidays alone in the Alps, where he soon becomes entangled in romantic relationships with three different women who pass through his guesthouse. We follow Stefan after his return to Paris as he reflects on the women in his life, at times playing the lover, and at others observing shrewdly from the periphery.
Women's four interlinked stories offer nuanced and deeply moving portraits of romantic relationships in all their complexity, from unrequited love and passionate affairs to tepid marriages of convenience. In light, elegant prose, Mihail Sebastian, widely regarded as the greatest Romanian writer of the 20th century, explores longing, otherness, empathy, and regret.
'His prose is like something Chekov might have written - the same modesty, candour, and subtleness of observation' Arthur Miller
'I love Sebastian's courage, his lightness, and his wit' John Banville
'Sebastian belongs in the pantheon of classic authors' New Statesman
'A minor masterpiece of voice, mood and emotion' Irish Times
Mihail Sebastian was born in Romania in 1907 as Iosef Hecter. He worked as a lawyer and writer until anti-Semitic legislation forced him to abandon his public career. Having survived the war and the Holocaust, he was killed in a road accident early in 1945 as he was crossing the street to teach his first class. His long-lost diary, Journal 1935-1944: The Fascist Years, was published to great acclaim in the late 1990s.
John Banville (Introducer)
John Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. He is the author of fourteen previous novels including The Sea, which won the 2005 Man Booker Prize. He was recently awarded the Franz Kafka Prize. He lives in Dublin.
