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Published in USA
Mar 2007
288 pages
Genre: Novels
Publication Information
Raised in a remote village on the edge of a sugarcane plantation, fourteen-year-old Isabel was born with the gift and curse of "seeing farther." When drought and war grip the backlands, her brother Isaias joins a great exodus to a teeming city in the south. Soon Isabel must follow, forsaking the only home she's ever known, her sole consolation the thought of being with her brother again. But when she arrives, she discovers that Isaias has disappeared. Weeks and then months pass, until one day, armed only with her unshakable hope, she descends into the chaos of the city to find him.
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"Mason invests his story with all the power of a fable, one that gives Isabel's personal bravery its due while also relaying the timelessness of human suffering." - Booklist.
"Readers may be wooed by the prose, but the story is a snoozer." - PW.
"Imperfectly realized and disturbingly enigmatic, but quite fascinating." - Kirkus.
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Daniel Mason is the author of The Piano Tuner (2002), and A Far Country (2007). The Piano Tuner has been translated into 28 languages and adapted for opera and stage. A Far Country was shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Northern California Book Award. His short stories and essays have appeared in Harper's, Zoetrope: All Story and Lapham's Quarterly; in 2014 he was a recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. A Clinical Assistant Professor in the Stanford University Department of Psychiatry, his research interests include the subjective experience of mental illness and the influence of literature, history, and culture on the practice of medicine.
A timely novel that explores the human capacity for resiliency and compassion.
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