Editions

Birdsong

Birdsong

Set before and during the great war, Birdsong captures the drama of that era on both a national and a personal scale. It is the story of Stephen, a young Englishman, who arrives in Amiens in 1910. His life goes through a series of traumatic experiences, from the clandestine love affair that tears apart the family with whom he lives, to the unprecedented experiences of the war itself.

Reviews

  • Magnificent - deeply moving

    Sunday Times

  • With Birdsong Faulks has produced a mesmerizing story of love and war... This book is so powerful that as I finished it I turned to the front to start again

    Sunday Express

  • Amazing... I have read it and re-read it and can think of no other novel for many, many years that has so moved me or stimulated in me so much reflection on the human spirit

    Daily Mail

  • An overpowering and beautiful novel... Ambitious, outrageous, poignant, sleep-disturbing, Birdsong is not a perfect novel, just a great one

    Simon Schama, New Yorker

  • Engrossing, moving, and unforgettable

    The Times

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About the Author

Sebastian Faulks

Sebastian Faulks was born in April 1953. Before becoming a full-time writer in 1991, he worked as a journalist. Sebastian Faulks’s books include A Possible Life, Human Traces, On Green Dolphin Street, Engleby, Birdsong, A Week in December and Where My Heart Used to Beat.

Sebastian Faulks

Read more

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Recommendations

Books that defined the 1990s

Charles and Di, Blur vs. Oasis, mobile phones or dial tones... the Nineties were a cultural and technological melting pot. Here, from J. K. Rowling to Jonathan Coe, Ben Okri to Helen Fielding, are some of the authors who best captured the decade in words.
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Extracts

Where My Heart Used to Beat

Disappear to a secluded island with this novel about war, love and loss
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Features

An interview with Sebastian Faulks

Sebastian Faulks talks about his writing, research for his novels and his inspirations.

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