Winner of the Man Booker Prize
By the author of The Handmaid's Tale and Alias Grace
Laura Chase's older sister Iris, married at eighteen to a politically prominent industrialist but now poor and eighty-two, is living in Port Ticonderoga, a town dominated by their once-prosperous family before the First War. While coping with her unreliable body, Iris reflects on her far from exemplary life, in particular the events surrounding her sister's tragic death. Chief among these was the publication of The Blind Assassin, a novel which earned the dead Laura Chase not only notoriety but also a devoted cult following.
Sexually explicit for its time, The Blind Assassin describes a risky affair in the turbulent thirties between a wealthy young woman and a man on the run. During their secret meetings in rented rooms, the lovers concoct a pulp fantasy set on Planet Zycron. As the invented story twists through love and sacrifice and betrayal, so does the real one; while events in both move closer to war and catastrophe. By turns lyrical, outrageous, formidable, compelling and funny, this is a novel filled with deep humour and dark drama.
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
ISBN: 9780349013060
Number of pages: 656
Weight: 500 g
Dimensions: 196 x 122 x 48 mm
Atwood has never written with more flair and versatility than in this multidimensional novel. Adding sardonic wit and characterisation that takes you into the ambivalent intricacies of a personality, this is a novel of extraordinary variety and reach. A brilliant accomplishment - Peter Kemp, SUNDAY TIMES
The fertility of Atwood's imagination is something extraordinary...The only thing familiar about The Blind Assassin is its technical accomplishment and exhilarating emotional power. Everything else is sparkling new - Kathryn Hughes, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
Margaret Atwood is one of the most brilliant and unpredictable novelists alive - Kate Kellaway, LITERARY REVIEW
With every year and every novel, Atwood's subjects get bigger...her new novel is so rich thematically and so convincing psychologically... THE BLIND ASSASSIN may indeed prove to be that most elusive of literary unicorns - Elaine Showalter, NEW STATESMAN
Completely rewardingSometimes, when reading a big book, one gets the feeling that the author set out to achieve size, as if that in itself might suggest certain adjectives from a reader or reviewer - weighty,... More
This was an excellent and entertaining read. Definitely her best yet, couldn't recommend it more.
Just finishing this novel, I feel that it really is a most memorable and moving work of art. It is a remarkably well constructed novel; the author plays with the reader in developing the story, a typical hallmark of a... More
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