Lampedusa - Steven Price

9781529019650

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Title
Lampedusa
Author
Steven Price
format
Paperback / softback
Publisher
Picador
Language
English
UK Publication Date
20200917

In the Sicily of the '50s, still haunted by memories of Fascism and the war, Giuseppe Tomasi, the last Prince of Lampedusa, struggles to complete the novel that will be his lasting legacy, The Leopard.

In 1943, an Allied bomb destroyed the Lampedusa palace in Palermo; in 1955, Giuseppe Tomasi is diagnosed with advanced emphysema. Shortly after, profoundly aware of his mortality, he begins work on a novel, imagining the life of his great-grandfather Don Giulio, astronomer prince and head of the family at the time of the Risorgimento.

Giuseppe Tomasi is a veteran of the previous war, while his wife Alessandra - 'Licy' - a Baltic German aristocrat, now lives in exile, after her native Latvia was absorbed into the Soviet Union. The childless couple are survivors of a vanishing world of European aristocracy, living in the present yet profoundly aware of the past. Steven Price takes us into the mind of the writer, his memories of war and loss, his complex relationships with his family, and inhabits the heart of a man facing down the end of his life and the end of his line, struggling to make something of lasting worth while there is still time.

Achingly haunting and beautifully conceived, Steven Price's Lampedusa tells the intensely moving story of one man's awakening to the possibilities of life, as he nears its end.

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Steven Price's previous novel, By Gaslight, was shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger, longlisted for the Giller Prize, and named a Book of the Year by NPR, CBC, and the Toronto Globe and Mail. He is the award-winning author of one other novel, Into that Darkness, and two collections of poetry.

He lives in Victoria, British Columbia, with his family.

So vivid and true . . . Lampedusa is a beautiful novel, lyrical and wise. Reading it made me feel both melancholy and uplifted.
Financial Times - David Gilmour, author of The Last Leopard, A Life of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Lampedusa is one of the most powerful depictions of the creative act, and its roots in the wounds of the soul, that a reader is likely to encounter . . . Lampedusa is a marvel, a strange, wonderful, and utterly unforgettable book.
Toronto Star

More striking than the biographical accuracy or even the intricate scaffolding of the story is the texture of images by Price, also a poet. Their beauty casts the same spell as his sensualist subject and the unhurried pleasure of experiencing them.
The Globe and Mail

Price powerfully imagines Tomasi's final days as the ailing author struggles to complete and publish his treasured manuscript . . . A masterful storyteller, Price conjures Tomasi with language and images that evocatively fix him and his distant world indelibly in our minds.
Jury Citation, Scotiabank Giller Prize

In subtle and intelligent prose, Price invites us into the mind of a man striving to make sense of memory and mortality.
Sunday Times

Price's dignified prose is reminiscent of the venerable classic. Lampedusa is a captivating look at life and legacy.
Irish Times

The prose is superbly controlled, richly textured, brimming with wise and lyrical insights that make it a worthy heir to its mighty predecessor.
New York Times

[Price traces] his protagonist's path toward death and self-knowledge in an unsparing yet tender portrait that makes Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa as compelling as his great novel.
Washington Post

An ode to writing itself . . . The author's poetic prose is infused with empathic warmth for the emotional travails of writing . . . An obviously, if quietly, ambitious novel.
Los Angeles Review of Books

Type
BOOK
Edition
1st paperback ed
Keyword Index
Biographical fiction.
Country of Publication
England
Number of Pages
272

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