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A Novel
by Georgina Harding
It is the early 1950s. A nameless man is found on the steps of the hospital in Iasi, Romania. He is deaf and mute, but a young nurse named Safta recognizes him from the past and brings him paper and pencils so that he might draw. Gradually, memories appear on the page: the man is Augustin, the cook’s son at the manor house at Poiana, where Safta was the privileged daughter. Born six months apart, they had a connection that bypassed words, but while Augustin’s world stayed the same size, Safta’s expanded to embrace languages, society, and a fleeting love one long, hot summer. But then came war, and in its wake a brutal Stalinist regime, and nothing would remain the same.
Georgina Harding’s kaleidoscopic new novel will appeal to readers of Anne Michaels, Michael Ondaatje, and Sandor Marai. It is as intense and submerging as rain, as steeped in the horrors of our recent history as it is in the intimate passions of the human heart.
"Harding effortlessly alternates between pre- and post-WWII, and her expert pacing lends a moving solemnity to the proceedings." - Publishers Weekly
"Though Harding’s novel is firmly set in historical time, which is Safta's reality, Tinu seems to exist on a different plane, and the multiple dimensions give the book a peculiar power." - Booklist
"Harding has created a memorable portrait in words of an exile from language." - Kirkus
This information about Painter of Silence was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Georgina Harding is the author of the novels The Spy Game and The Solitude of Thomas Cave. She lives in London and the Stour Valley, Essex.
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