More poetry and prose from Louis de Bernières
Louis de Bernières (Author)
Transporting us to all corners of the globe, the tales in Louis de Bernières’ worldly and entertaining collection Labels and Other Stories feature a cast of unlikely and unforgettable heroes who can be found collecting luxury tinned cat-food labels, posting fish to the President, falling in love with dolphin deities and dining with Brazilian street thieves. And in ‘Gunter Weber's Confession’, we return once more to the Greek island of Captain Corelli's Mandolin and its much-loved characters.
Full of wit, charm and warmth, Labels and Other Stories shows the imaginative range and unique storytelling power of one of our msot treasured writers.
Louis de Bernières (Author)
The enchanting story of a very remarkable dog from the author of the bestselling Captain Corelli's Mandolin.
‘In early 1998 I went to Perth in Western Australia in order to attend the literature festival, and part of the arrangement was that I should go to Karratha to do their first ever literary dinner. Karratha is a mining town a long way further north. The landscape is extraordinary, being composed of vast heaps of dark red earth and rock poking out of the never-ending bush.
I imagine that Mars must have a similar feel to it. I went exploring and discovered the bronze statue to Red Dog outside the town of Dampier. I felt straight away that I had to find out more about this splendid dog. A few months later I returned to Western Australia and spent two glorious weeks driving around collecting Red Dog stories and visiting the places that he knew, writing up the text as I went along. I hope my cat never finds out that I have written a story to celebrate the life of a dog.’ Louis de Bernières.
‘If you love Australia it will have you aching for the scent of gums and sight of the Southern Cross, while if you love dogs it is sure to make you highly indulgent towards the one you love’ Observer
Louis de Bernières (Author)
'The kind of book that changes readers for the better' Guardian
When a family tragedy means Mick is sent to the outback to live with his Granpa, it looks as if he has a lonely life ahead of him. The cattle station is a tough place for a child, where nature is brutal and the men must work hard in the heat and dust. However, after a cyclone hits, things change for Mick. Exploring the floodwaters, he finds a lost puppy covered in mud and half-drowned. Mick and his dog immediately become inseparable as they take on the adventures offered by their unusual home, and the business of growing up, together.
In this charming prequel to the much-loved Red Dog, Louis de Bernières tells the moving story of a young boy and his Granpa, and the charismatic and entertaining dog who so many readers hold close to their hearts.
Louis de Bernières (Author)
A beautiful and unlikely love story about what unites us from the bestselling author of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.
Chris is in his forties: bored, lonely, trapped in a loveless, sexless marriage.
He's a stranger to the 1970s youth culture of London, a stranger to himself on the night he invites a prostitute into his car.
Roza has recently moved to London from eastern Europe. She's in her twenties, but has already lived a life filled with danger, misadventure, romance, and tragedy. And though she's not a prostitute, when she's propositioned by Chris, she gets into his car anyway.
Over the next few months Roza tells Chris the stories of her past. She's a fast-talking Scheherazade, saving her own life by telling it to Chris. And he takes in her tales as if they were oxygen in an otherwise airless world. But is Roza telling the truth? Does it even matter?
'Sublimely funny and moving’ Independent
Louis de Bernières (Author)
Taking his inspiration from Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood, Louis de Bernières chose to celebrate his ten years of life in the south London suburb, living above a small shop that had been by turns an outlet for oversized naughty clothes for transvestites, a West Indian hairdressers and a junk shop, by writing of the people that he had known and come to love in his time there.
Brilliantly capturing the myriad voices of modern Britain, with their different rhythms of speech and accents, their humour and their tragedy, jokes and gossip, de Bernières' tour de force takes us to the heart of a community and its spirit - the lives and loves, the tears and the laughter of its people.
Louis de Bernières (Author)
‘Surreal and hilarious’ Independent
Enter Louis de Bernières' 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 Bernières (Author)
‘Sharp, funny, engaging’ Financial Times
Discover the second gripping novel in Louis de Bernières' satricial tragic, hilarious South American trilogy.
Dionisio Vivo, a South American lecturer in philosophy, is puzzled by the bodies that keep turning up outside his front door.
To his friend, Ramon, one of the few honest policemen in town, the message is all too clear: Dionisio's letters to the press, exposing the drug barons, must stop; and although Dionisio manages to escape the hit-men sent to get him, he soon realises that others are more vulnerable, and his love for them leads him to take a colossal revenge.
Louis de Bernières (Author)
The epic finale of the Latin American trilogy following The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts and Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord
While the economy of his small South American country collapses, President Veracruz joins his improbable populace of ex-soldiers, former guerrillas, unfrocked priests and reformed - though by no means inactive - whores, in a bizarre search for sexual fulfilment.
But for Cardinal Guzman, a man tormented by his own private daemons, their stupendous, hedonistic fiestas represent the epicentre of all heresies.Heresies that must be challenged with a horrifying new inquisition destined to climax in a spectacular confrontation...
'An extraordinary feat of imagination... a sensuous, often farcical and ultimately optimistic argument for spiritual sanity' Time Out
