Homeland

Description

The international bestseller, longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award 2021. 'It's been a long time since I've read a book that was so persuasive and moving' - Mario Vargas Llosa, author of Time of the Hero. The Basque Country, Spain, 2011. Miren and Bittori have lived side by side in a small Basque town all their lives. Their husbands play cards together, their children play and eventually go out drinking together. The terrorist threat posed by ETA seems to affect them little. When Bittori's husband starts receiving threatening letters - demanding money, accusing him of being a police informant - she turns to her friend for help. But Miren's loyalties are torn: her son has just been recruited as a terrorist and to denounce them would be to condemn her own flesh and blood. Tensions rise, relationships fracture, and events move towards a tragic conclusion . . . 'Is Aramburu the Tolstoy of the Basque country, author of a Spanish language War and Peace?' - Guardian

Fernando Aramburu was born in San Sebastian in 1959. The author of three volumes of short stories and several novels, he lives in Germany where he works as a lecturer in Spanish language.

Few books make me cry these days but by the final page I found my eyes prickling with tears. By examining his society in such close detail, Aramburu encourages us to reflect on the bitter divisions in our own world and the opportunities we have for reconciliation. * Sunday Times * It's been a long time since I've read a book that was so persuasive and moving, so intelligently conceived. -- Mario Vargas Llosa Is Aramburu the Tolstoy of the Basque country, author of a Spanish language War and Peace that lays bare the pain of forty pointless years of separatist terrorism? * Guardian * A powerful novel which has a strong claim to be the definite fictional account of the Basque troubles . . . Aramburu skillfully spins their stories in short, punchy chapters that dart back and forth in time. Its message is ultimately redemptive. * Economist * A magnificent novel which is becoming a publishing, political and literary phenomenon. A story imbued with a spine-tingling sense of realism. * Vanguardia * Homeland is, above all, a great and considered novel . . . combing evocation and analysis . . . War and Peace by Tolstoy did it. The work of Fernando Aramburu achieves the same thing. * El Pais * Homeland is a sweeping novel that explores so many aspects of life . . . Aramburu brings [ethnic nationalism] under the microscope to show its effects on a few individuals. The results are brilliant and unnerving. * Herald * Phenomenal . . . [Aramaburu is as] magnanimous as he is passionate. * Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung * A work of tremendous power . . . [One is] reminded how overwhelming and powerful literature can be. * Die Zeit * An event: Aramburu masterfully manages to tell of great things in small ways. * Stern * Shedding the occasional tear doesn't matter. It is in any case difficult to read Homeland and remain dry-eyed. * Corriere della Sera * Gripping . . . A palpable hit. * Spiegel * Worth every page. * Vogue (Germany) * As humorous as it is heartbreaking, Homeland explores how various factions of Basque and Spanish society were violently pitted against one another for fifty years. * Millions * Aramburu recounts the lives of ordinary people shattered by events that are ongoing in Spain today even years after ETA has suspended its armed campaign . . . A humane, memorable work of literature. * Kirkus (starred review) * A brilliant and important book. Our planet is covered with lines of various kind, and Aramburu masterfully examines the bodies and souls those lines cut through like razors. * Nadeem Aslam *