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Apeirogon
a novel about Israel, Palestine and shared grief, nominated for the 2020 Booker Prize
Apeirogon
a novel about Israel, Palestine and shared grief, nominated for the 2020 Booker Prize
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Description
Bloomsbury presents Apeirogon written and read by Colum McCann.
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2020 BOOKER PRIZE
SHORTLISTED FOR THE PRIX MÉDICIS AND THE PRIX FEMINA
WINNER OF THE PRIX DE MEILLEUR LIVRE ETRANGER
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A BBC BOOK OF 2020
CHOSEN AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE SUNDAY TIMES, OBSERVER, GUARDIAN, i PAPER, FINANCIAL TIMES, NEW STATESMAN, SCOTSMAN, IRISH TIMES, BBC.COM, WATERSTONES.COM
'A wondrous book. It left me hopeful' Elizabeth Strout
'You have to read Apeirogon' Sunday Times
'Nothing like any book you've ever read' Michael Cunningham
'Quite extraordinary' Kamila Shamsie
The novel of a lifetime about two men and their daughters: divided by conflict, yet united in grief.
Rami Elhanan and Bassam Aramin live near one another – yet they exist worlds apart. Rami is Israeli. Bassam is Palestinian. Rami's license plate is yellow. Bassam's license plate is green. It takes Rami fifteen minutes to drive to the West Bank. The same journey for Bassam takes an hour and a half.
Both men have lost their daughters. Rami's thirteen-year-old girl Smadar was killed by a suicide bomber while out shopping with her friends. Bassam's ten-year-old daughter Abir was shot and killed by a member of the border police outside her school. There was a candy bracelet in her pocket she hadn't had time to eat yet.
The men become the best of friends.
In this epic novel – named for a shape with a countably infinite number of sides – Colum McCann crosses centuries and continents, stitching time, art, history, nature and politics into a tapestry of friendship, love, loss and belonging. Musical, muscular, delicate and soaring, Apeirogon is the novel for our times.
'A quite extraordinary novel. Colum McCann has found the form and voice to tell the most complex of stories, with an unexpected friendship between two men at its powerfully beating heart' KAMILA SHAMSIE
Product details
| Published | 25 Feb 2020 |
|---|---|
| Format | Audiobook |
| Duration | 15 hours and 20 minutes |
| ISBN | 9781526617873 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Publishing |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
About the contributors
Reviews
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Nothing like any book you've ever read ... Think of discovering an entirely unprecedented, and profoundly true, narrative form. Think about feeling that the very idea of the novel, of what it can be and what it's capable of containing, has been expanded, forever ... All I can really tell you is, read McCann's book. It's an important book
MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM
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This is a wondrous book. In an accretion of splendid detail, McCann writes with an amazing abundance of humanity as he describes the age old story of inhumanity to man. The affect is absolutely staggering, it will bring you to your knees. Writing at the top of his game, McCann brings us a book that we sorely need. It left me hopeful; this is its gift. What a read!
ELIZABETH STROUT
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Now you have to read Apeirogon ... Delirious and thrilling, spectacular
Sunday Times
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Weaves documentary and imagination into its tough physical fabric . .. Frequently beautiful … Often dazzles … At the core of this fractal fiction is a simple, radiant myth: "The hero makes a friend of his enemy"
Economist
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Brilliant ... powerful and prismatic ... Apeirogon is an empathy engine, utterly collapsing the gulf between teller and listener ... It achieves its aim by merging acts of imagination and extrapolation with historical fact. But it's undisputably a novel, and, to my mind, an exceedingly important one. It does far more than make an argument for peace; it is, itself, an agent of change
New York Times Book Review
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A profound account of pain and healing …
The closest recent comparisons – in terms of ambition and intention, if not style – might be Claudia Rankine's genre defying works on race such as Citizen: An American Lyric or Maggie Nelson's exploration in The Red Parts and Jane: A Murder of the murder of her aunt, books that transcend the usual categories and set out to challenge and amazeGuardian
























