A.L. KENNEDY

Alfred Day wanted his war. In its turmoil he found his proper purpose as the tail-gunner in a Lancaster bomber; he found the wild, dark fellowship of his crew, and - most extraordinary of all - he found Joyce, a woman to love. But that's all gone now - the war took it away. Maybe it took him, too. Before Hitler and the bombs he was a boy in Staffordshire, helpless to defend his mother, to resist his abusive father. The RAF gave him order, skills, another family and a way to be a man. It taught him how to burn through lifetimes on night ops and brief, sweet leaves, surviving the unsurvivable. But it didn't prepare him for capture, for the prison camp and the chaos as the war wound down. It didn't prepare him for an empty peace. Now it's 1949 and Alfred is doing the impossible again, winding back time to see where he lost himself. He has taken the role of an extra in a Pow film. Shipped out to Germany and an ersatz camp, he picks his way through the cliches that will become all that's left of his war and begins to do what he's never dared - to remember. He is looking for some semblance of hope: trying to move forward by going back.A superbly realised novel about the brutal simplicities of war - of horror, and the camaraderie found in the closeness to death - and a moving exploration of the complexities of human emotion, "Day" is a wonderful piece of storytelling: the freight of history and humanity carried effortlessly by the beauty of the writing. For previous readers of A.L. Kennedy's books the dark humour, close observation and thrillingly original language will come as no surprise; for new readers, this novel will be a revelation.

In the course of the ensuing trial, it becomes clear that what is at stake is more than one man's guilt. For on San Piedro, memory grows as thickly as cedar trees and the fields of ripe strawberries -- memories of a charmed love affair between a white boy and the Japanese girl who grew up to become Kabuo's wife; memories of land desired, paid for, and lost. Above all, San Piedro is haunted by the memory of what happened to its Japanese residents during World War II, when an entire community was sent into exile while its neighbors watched. Gripping, tragic, and densely atmospheric, Snow Falling on Cedars is a masterpiece of suspense -- but one that leaves us shaken and changed.

The heroes and heroines of Night Geometry and the Garscadden Trains, A. L. Kennedy's first collection of stories, are small people - the kind who inhabit the silence in libraries, who never appear on screen and who never make the headlines. Often alone and sometimes lonely, her characters ponder the mysteries of sex and death-and the ability of public transport to affect our lives.

Jon is 59 and divorced: a senior civil servant in Westminster who hates many of his colleagues and loathes his work, he is a good man in a bad world.Meg is a bankrupt accountant two words you dont want in the same sentence, or anywhere near your CV. Living on Telegraph Hill, she can see London unfurl below her. Somewhere out there is safety.As Jon and Meg navigate the sweet and serious heart of London passing through 24 hours that will change them both for ever they tell a very unusual, unbearably moving love story.

Always attuned to the moment of epiphany, these twelve stories are profound, intimate observations of men and women whose lives ache with possibility - each story a dramatisation of the instant in a life that exposes it all: love and the lack of love, hope and the lack of hope. These men and women are perfectly ordinary people - whose marriages founder; who sit on their own in a cinema watching a film with no soundtrack; and, who risk sex in a hotel with an anonymous stranger. They conceal tenderness and disappointment, vulnerability and longing, griefs and wonders - and, with each of them, Kennedy finds and opens up that extraordinary emotional wound, that insight into their experiences: like the woman in 'Saturday Teatime' who tries to relax in a flotation tank, before her memories hijack her, taking her back to last weekend's party - to a boy with a hamster, and his lecherous father - and then further back to another Saturday, when she was nine years old, when the troubling of her life began. A.L. Kennedy's fifth remarkable collection of short stories shows us exactly what becomes of the broken-hearted. She reveals the sadness, violence, hurt and terror, but also the redemption of love - and she does so with the enormous human compassion, wild leaps of humour, and the brilliantly original linguistic skill that distinguishes her as one of Britain's finest writers.

A.L. Kennedy es una de las escritoras más originales, insolentes y audaces del panorama internacional. En esta novela, su obra más reciente #merecedora del premio Costa al mejor libro del año#, la autora explora el mundo de la guerra desde un punto de vista insolito. Alfred Day encontro todo lo que siempre habia soñado a bordo de un bombardero de la RAF: orden, amistad, una familia, un oficio y, sobre todo, amor. Ahora, una vez terminada la contienda y en el subitamente desolado mundo de la paz, Day ha perdido el rumbo y no sabe adaptarse al nuevo regimen. Cuando acepte un papel de extra en una pelicula belica que de alguno modo reproduce su propia historia, empezara a recordar y a contrastar su experiencia con los topicos y las banalidades que se empiezan a formar en torno a la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Con un humor descarado, una imaginacion desproporcionada y un estilo intransferible, A.L. Kennedy consigue hablar de la vida en la guerra, de la felicidad en el ambito de la muerte. La obra llena de fuerza y plenamente lograda de una escritora enormemente poderosa. Deberia ganar todos los premios. Daily Telegraph Kennedy escribe con una calculada y extraordinaria libertad poetica. The Herald

Alfred Day wanted his war. In its turmoil he found his proper purpose as the tail-gunner in a Lancaster bomber; he found the wild, dark fellowship of his crew, and - most extraordinary of all - he found Joyce, a woman to love. But that''s all gone now - the war took it away. Maybe it took him, too. Now in 1949, employed as an extra in a war film that echoes his real experience, Day begins to recall what he would rather forget...

"A writer rich in the humanity and warmth that seems at a premium in these bleak times." --Salman Rushdie "Kennedy has now proved that she is one of the few young writers to have found a distinctive voice, one that we could recognize even from a couple of sentences; and that in itself is already a considerable achievement." --Jonathan Coe "The young Scottish writer A. L. Kennedy has said she admires Raymond Carver for his sense of limitation, for his dealing with small precise human situations for themselves. Her own work has these virtues." --A. S. Byatt "Mesmerizes with its musicality and startles with the frankness of its sexual detail . . . The narrative is relentless . . . Manages to address its characters' deep pathos brazenly, and without apology." --Publishers Weekly "Beautiful, rare, and touching: Kennedy handles extremely volatile material with the greatest care . . . A small gem." --Kirkus Reviews From the Hardcover edition.

A topical London love story from the brilliant, prize-winning A. L. Kennedy.A good man in a bad world, Jon Sigurdsson is 59 and divorced: a senior civil servant in Westminster who hates many of his colleagues and loathes his work for a government engaged in unmentionable acts. A man of conscience.Meg Williams is a bankrupt accountant two words you dont want in the same sentence, or anywhere near your CV. Shes 45 and shakily sober, living on Telegraph Hill, where she can see London unfurl below her. Somewhere out there is safety.Somewhere out there is Jon, pinballing around the city with a mobile phone and a letter-writing habit he cant break. Hes a man on the brink, leaking government secrets and affection as he runs for his life.Set in 2014, this is a novel of our times. Poignant, deeply funny, and beautifully written, Serious Sweet is about two decent, damaged people trying to make moral choices in an immoral world: ready to sacrifice whats left of themselves for honesty, and for a chance at tenderness. As Jon and Meg navigate the sweet and serious heart of London passing through 24 hours that will change them both for ever they tell a very unusual, unbearably moving love story.

A collection of short stories that shows readers exactly what becomes of the broken-hearted. It reveals the sadness, violence, hurt and terror, and also the redemption of love.

Almost forty and with nothing to show for it, Hannah Luckraft is starting to notice that her lifestyle is not entirely sustainable: her subconscious is turning against her, her soul is a little unwell. Her family is wounded, her friends are odd, her body is not as reliable as it once was and her drinking is frankly out of hand. Robert, a dissolute dentist, appears to offer a love she can understand, but he may only be one more symptom of the problem she must cure. From the north-east of Scotland to Dublin, from London to Montreal, to Budapest and onwards, Hannah travels in search of the ultimate altered state: the one where she can be happy - her paradise. PARADISE is a compelling examination of failure that is also a comic triumph, a novel of dark extremes that is full of the most ravishing lyrical beauty.

This is the story of Mary, a young girl born in a beautiful city full of rose gardens and fluttering kites. When she is still very small, Mary meets Lanmo, a shining golden snake, who becomes her very best friend. The snake visits Mary many times, he sees her city change, become sadder as bombs drop and war creeps in. He sees Mary and her family leave their home, he sees her grow up and he sees her fall in love. But Lanmo knows that the day will come when he can no longer visit Mary, when his destiny will break them apart, and he wonders whether having a friend can possibly be worth the pain of knowing you will lose them. From one of Britain's most gifted and celebrated writers, The Little Snake is a magical and deeply moving fable about the journey we all take through life, about love and family, about war and resilience, about how we live in this world, and how we leave it.

The breakthrough novel by Best-of-Young-British novelist Hannah Luckraft knows the taste of paradise. It's hidden in the peace of open country, it's sweet on her lover's skin, it flavours every drink she's ever taken, but it never seems to stay. Almost forty and with nothing to show for it, even Hannah is starting to notice that her lifestyle is not entirely sustainable: her subconscious is turning against her and it may be that her soul is a little unwell. Her family is wounded, her friends are frankly odd, her body is not as reliable as it once was. Robert, a dissolute dentist, appears to offer a love she can understand, but he may only be one more symptom of the problem she must cure. From the north-east of Scotland to Dublin, from London to Montreal, to Budapest and onwards, Hannah travels beyond her limits, beyond herself, in search of the ultimate altered state: the one where she can be happy - her paradise. Incapable of writing a dull sentence, or failing to balance the grim with the hilarious, the tender with the shocking, A.L. Kennedy has written an emotional and visceral tour-de-force. A compelling examination of failure that is also a comic triumph, a novel of dark extremes that is full of the most ravishing lyrical beauty, Paradise is the finest book yet by one of Britain's most extraordinarily gifted writers.