War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts

Description

The first of Louis de Bernieres' magical, tragic, hilarious trilogy set in a fictional South American country. 'Surreal and hilarious' Independent Enter Louis de Berni res' magical, tragic and hilarious South American odyssey. When the spoilt and haughty Dona Constanza tries to divert a river to fill her swimming pool, she starts a running battle with the locals. The skirmishes are so severe that the Government dispatches a squadron of soldiers led by the fat, brutal and stupid Figueras to deal with them. Despite visiting plagues of laughing fits and giant cats upon the troops, the villagers know that to escape the cruel and unusual tortures planned for them, they must run. Thus they plan to head for the mountains and start a new and convivial civilisation...

Louis de Bernieres is the best-selling author of Captain Corelli's Mandolin, which won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Best Book in 1995. His most recent books are The Dust That Falls From Dreams, Birds Without Wings and A Partisan's Daughter, a collection of stories, Notwithstanding, and a collection of poetry, Imagining Alexandria.

A very good book indeed, the sharpest and funniest I have read in quite some time * Financial Times * A fat, juicy, tropical fruit of a narrative... There is astonishing landscape. There are numerous good jokes. And, indispensably in such a novel, there is magic * Independent on Sunday * A wonderful mixture of the mythical and the poetic, of the cruel and clinical aspects of life... I have seldom read a finer first novel. It is one to savour and revisit * Scotland on Sunday * Sureal and hilarious [...] perfect for anyone lucky enough to be on an South American gap year -- Katy Guest * The Independent * A tour de force * Time Out *