Dinslaken, Germany. July 1945. The war is over, and the Allied forces are beginning to assess the damage. Among them is a war photographer. As the rest of the press corps return home, he finds himself reluctant to leave and, in the company of the young and sensitive driver he has been assigned, he sets out to photograph ordinary German people in front of their homes. As the pair continue their journey, it becomes clear that the young driver has his own reasons for not wishing to return home.
Told with Mingarelli's trademark restraint and elegance, this is a tense, tender story of the emotional and moral repercussions of violence.
Publisher: Granta Books
ISBN: 9781783786022
Number of pages: 144
Weight: 217 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 8 mm
This is pure, limpid prose which welcomes silence as music does... The "invisible land" is [revealed to be] a continent that exists in the depths of each person, in all its unfathomable mystery, its fragile and moving humanity - Le Courier Suisse
The poetry of Mingarelli's prose carries this subtle novel [...] between light and shadow - Page
Mingarelli writes beautifully about companionship and compassion, his absorbing gentleness shot through with the cruelty and trauma haunting this exquisite novel - Alison Moore
A stunning work that glimmers and unsettles... a memorable end to a career of quiet brilliance - Literary Review
[The Invisible Land] is all about complicity and guilt - Sunday Times
A timeless exploration of the way we seek to grapple with atrocity and how it haunts us... calm, quiet and expertly controlled - Daily Mail
A master of the laconic. Languid, cajoling and yet silently emotional; all these characteristics flow through his tender style ... In this extraordinary book Mingarelli shows us [...] that words can mean everything, and teaches us to savour every one - Big Issue
Eerie - Strong Words
Mingarelli describes [events] with devastating restraint... unexpected - Times
The writing style is very pared back, reminiscent of Hemingway - Historical Novel Society
This little marvel of a book has the haunting beauty of a fable and the emotional pull of stark realism. Set in the closing weeks of the war in Germany, a British photographer, attached to a combat unit, becomes... More
Here is another short novel by Hubert Mingarelli immaculately translated into English for the first time. Set immediately at the end of WW2 the protagonist is an English war photographer who has lately witnessed the... More
I struggled to finish this small book. At the end of the 2nd ww a photographer and a young driver try to make some sense of the aimless bloody struggle by driving around Germany and meeting and photographing ordinary... More
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