The Syringa Tree: A Novel - Taschenbuch

A gripping first novel in the tradition of such great southern African writers as Nadine Gordimer and Doris Lessing. Spare beautiful prose builds to an unforgettable climax. "--Booklist" "Pamela Gien's novel is impressively affecting. She is a wonder. The Syringa Tree as a play was uniquely moving, but Gien has taken it beyond its walls, and given us remarkable writing that stands freely as a deeply affecting and fresh telling of this classic story." --Lillian Ross "The story of a young girl and her cherished caretaker is the story of a heartbroken country. Pamela Gien brings South Africa to vivid life, illuminating how the bonds of love are stronger than the forces of history. I read the end of the book through tears."-Amanda Eyre Ward, author of "How to Be Lost" "This book plunges us inside the skin of humanity and is suffused with a rare understanding. "The Syringa Tree" reminds us that every life can be a drop-and a great deal more-in the sea of history."-Scott Simon, author of "Pretty Birds" and "Home and Away" "Gien captures perfectly the voice of the child Elizabeth and the grown woman she becomes. Evocative and impassioned."-- "Baltimore Sun" A gorgeous, hopeful, heartrending novel. . . . This uncommonly moving, deeply humane novel nearly dances in a reader's hands with the rhythms and the colors, the complicatedness and the inimitability of southern Africa."--"O The Oprah Magazine" "From the Hardcover edition."