From the booker Prize-winning author of Possession comes this richly imaginitive story collection that transports the reader to a world where opposites--passion and loneliness, betrayal and loyalty, fire and ice--clash and converge.
A beautiful ice maiden risks her life when she falls in love with a desert prince, whose passionate touches scorch her delicate skin. A woman flees the scene of her husband's heart attack, leaving her entire past behind her. Striving to master color and line, a painter discovers the resolution to his artisitc problems when a beautiful and magical water snake appears in his pool. And a wealthy Englishwoman gradually loses her identity while wandering through a shopping mall. Elegantly crafter and suffused with boundless wisdom, these bewitching tales are a testament to a writer at the hieght of her powers.
A.S. Byatt is internationally acclaimed as a novelist, short-story writer and critic. Her books include Possession and the quartet of The Virgin in the Garden, Still Life, Babel Tower and A Whistling Woman. She was appointed Dame of the British Empire in 1999.
Praise
Praise
"Fired by a fierce intelligence and related in shimmering prose. This eclectic little volume should delight A. S. Byatt's devoted readers and attract many new ones." -The New York Times
"A stunning display.... Elementals combines finely wrought stories with imagery as sparkling as jewels. It is a work that should not be missed." -The Denver Post
"A wonderful book-complex, amusing, clever, and thought-provoking--a reader's dream." -The Plain Dealer