Captain Corelli's Mandolin

Format:	Paperback 544 pages

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Synopsis

It is 1941 and Captain Antonio Corelli, a young Italian officer, is posted to the Greek island of Cephallonia as part of the occupying forces. At first he is ostracised by the locals, but as a conscien-tious but far from fanatical soldier, whose main aim is to have a peaceful war, he proves in time to be civilised, humorous - and a consumate musician. When the local doctor's daughter's letters to her fiance go unanswered, the working of the eternal triangle seems inevitable. But can this fragile love survive as a war of bestial savagery gets closer and the lines are drawn between invader and defender.

Book details

Published
01/06/1995

Publisher
Vintage

ISBN
9780749397548

Publisher and industry reviews

Jacket review

"Brims with all the grand topics of literature -- love and death, heroism and skull-duggery, humor and pathos, not to mention art and religion...A good old-fashioned novel."
--"Washington Post Book World"
"An exuberant mixture of history and romance, written with a wit that is incandescent"
--"Los Angeles Times Book Review"
"Stunning...A high-spirited historical romance...Remarkable."
--"The New York Times Book Review"
"His novel will give pleasure to all sorts of readers. It is also so good that it will last."
--A.S. Byatt writing in "Evening Standard
"
"Captain Corelli's Mandolin is an emotional, funny, stunning novel which swings with wide smoothness between joy and bleakness, personal lives and history...it's lyrical and angry, satirical and earnest."
--"Observer
"
"A wonderful, hypnotic novel of fabulous scope and tremendous iridescent charm."
--Joseph Heller
"It is funny, heartbreaking, and horrifying in its fictional testimony....Captain Corelli's Mandolin, delightful and sad, comic and at the same time nearly unbearable in its portrayal of European darkness during the war, is a tour de force depiction of the triumph of life over evil by one of Europe's great comic writers of our time."
--"Booklist
"
"Dazzling....a fabulous book in the tradition of Tolstoy and Dickens....So joyous and heartbreaking, so rich and musical and wise, that reading it is like discovering anew the enchanting power of fiction."
--"San Francisco Chronicle"

UK Kirkus review

Set on the Greek island of Cephalonia, this is a tale of the inhabitants of that island throughout World War II. The story centres on the love between the doctor's daughter Pelagia and the Italian officer Antonio Corelli, with a pageant of other characters, animals, catastrophes and joys so rich, so funny, so rewarding, that only superlatives can be used to describe this luscious novel. (Kirkus UK)

About the author

Louis de Bernieres

Louis de Bernieres' first three novels are The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts (Commonwealth Writers Prize, Best First Book Eurasia Region, 1991), Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord (Commonwealth Writers Prize, Best Book Eurasia Region, 1992), and The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman. The author was selected as one of the Granta twenty Best of Young British Novelists in 1993. Captain Corelli's Mandolin won the Commonwealth Writers Prize, Best Book, 1995. His most recent book is Birds Without Wings.