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Written by Louis de Bernières

• Format: Hardcover, 208 pages
• Publisher: Knopf
• On Sale: October 7, 2008
• Price: $23.95
• ISBN: 978-0-307-26887-7 (0-307-26887-X)

about this book

The new novel from the acclaimed author of Corelli’s Mandolin—a love story at once raw and sweetly funny, wry and heartbreakingly sad.

He’s Chris: bored, lonely, trapped in a loveless, sexless marriage. In his forties, he’s a stranger inside the youth culture of London in the late 1970s, a stranger to himself on the night when he invites a hooker into his car.

She’s Roza:Yugoslavian, recentlymovedto London, the daughter of one of Tito’s partisans. She’s in her twenties but has already lived a life filled with danger, misadventure, romance, and tragedy. And although she’s not a hooker, when she’s propositioned by Chris, she gets into his car anyway.

Over the next months Roza tells Chris the stories of her past. She’s a fast-talking, wily 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 Chris hear the stories through the filter of his own need? Does it even matter?

The deeply moving novel of their unlikely love—narrated in the moment and in recollection, each of their voices deftly realized—is also a brilliantly subtle commentary on storytelling: its seductions and powers, and its ultimately unavoidable dangers.

“Desire lingers like a ghost in a new tale from the author of Corelli’s Mandolin . . . I was caught up by Roza's storytelling and hoped that these two desperate people might somehow find more together. As anyone who's read de Bernières knows, however, such hopes are never resolved in simple ways.” —Nick Owchar, Los Angeles Times Book Review

“In A Partisan’s Daughter, his urgent, spare new novel of romantic obsession, Louis de Bernières, proficient at intricate historical narratives, shows himself an artist of the simpler story as well. Not that simple means easy. If prostitution, as so often is said, is the oldest profession, then writing about fallen women must be the oldest literary subject. To make that subject hit its mark requires a new spin. For de Bernières, it’s the smoldering repression suffered by a melancholy London salesman.” —Liesl Schillinger, New York Times Book Review

“Two unreliable narrators perform a discordant but appealing duet in A Partisan’s Daughter.” —Carolyn See, Washington Post Book World

“Louis de Bernières is the go-to guy if you like richly told ‘big’ books–sweeping stories, filled with colorful characters and told from multiple points of view. His new book is not big and the multiplicity of voices with which the narrative unwinds has been reduced to just two. Still, A Partisan’s Daughter is vintage de Bernières . . . De Bernières, like Roza, knows how to construct a captivating narrative, and A Partisan’s Daughter is a graceful, persuasive exploration of boundless storytelling and the limits of love.”—Robert Weibezahl, BookPage

“Although Scheherazade may be the most famous damsel ever to delay her fate by spinning out nightly yarns of fantasy and intrigue, Roza, de Bernières’s captivating temptress, is equally gifted in the art of storytelling . . . A provocative and artful analyst of the human psyche, de Bernières vividly celebrates the tantalizing strength of stories to transform individual lives through their eternal and universal appeal.” —Carol Haggas, Booklist (starred)

“Although more introspective than de Bernières's other works, this latest novel is no less skillful. For all literary fiction collections.” —Christine Perkins, Library Journal

“De Bernières delivers an oddball love story of two spiritually displaced would-be lovers . . . The conclusion is crushing, and Chris’s scorching regret burns brightly to the last line.” —Publishers Weekly

“An attractive and completely compelling story about the power of narrative.” —Daily Mail

“A glory . . . The layering of anecdote and reverie and the escalation of intimacy between two marginalised characters is so subtle and authentic that the novel is intensely moving and has its own unexpected momentum . . . The novel’s charm works by stealth. It reads like a memoir; it offers subtle comment on the art of storytelling; it rarely strikes a false note, and it contains lessons about love and regret and seizing the moment. Like Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach, A Partisan’s Daughter is a novel about missed opportunities and wrong paths taken, tracing the way in which one false move can alter the history of a life . . . This is a work whose artistic integrity should be applauded. It’s a wise and moving novel, perfectly accomplished. It shows that no life is ordinary. It shines fresh light on the nature of love.”—Joanna Briscoe, The Guardian

“How do you follow up Corelli’s Mandolin, one of the most successful British novels of all time? . . . A Partisan’s Daughter, although also revolving around politics, history and romance, is very much a departure. Yet it is a triumph–a finely-executed little masterpiece.”—Henry Sutton, The Mirror (Book of the Week)

“This is a silk stocking of a novel: fragile, light–and yet possessed of surprising tensile strength. De Bernières’s mellifluent, clear prose slips through the reader’s mind with efficient ease, and even at its most dramatically jarring, you never need to come up for air. This is de Bernières’s skill, and it is a considerable one . . . This is the story of a failed, uncertain love affair. But there is another significant dimension to the action: the culture clash between East and West . . . As a study in frustration, both sexual and romantic, A Partisan’s Daughter is gripping.”—Sarah Vine, The Times (London)

“Set in 1970s London, A Partisan’s Daughter captures a moment in time . . . At first glance a book set in London is a new departure for the novelistically globetrotting de Bernières. However, the author indulges his usual fondness for foreign and historical settings via Roza and her tales of life in Tito’s Yugoslavia . . . De Bernières is an assured writer in many ways. His writing style is never in doubt . . . There are many sharp observations on society and people and there is certainly humour . . . A Partisan’s Daughter is an interesting book, a clever book, and one that is well worth reading.”—Aine O’Connor, Sunday Independent (Ireland)

“De Bernières is a skilful writer, poetic but unforced, who can soothe you like a masseur, telling well-oiled stories of past excitements, and then just when you are drifting off, dexterously tweak a pressure point . . . Although the two books could hardly be more different, A Partisan’s Daughter shares with Corelli a love affair thwarted by a misunderstanding . . . One finishes the book gripped by a quiet, pleasant sadness.”—Toby Clements, Daily Telegraph