Produktdetaljer
Biographical note
Helen Dunmore was an award-winning novelist, children’s author and poet who will be remembered for the depth and breadth of her fiction. Rich and intricate, yet narrated with a deceptive simplicity that made all of her work accessible and heartfelt, her writing stood out for the fluidity and lyricism of her prose, and her extraordinary ability to capture the presence of the past.
Her first novel, Zennor in Darkness, explored the events which led D. H. Lawrence to be expelled from Cornwall on suspicion of spying, and won the McKitterick Prize. Her third novel, A Spell of Winter, won the inaugural Orange Prize for Fiction in 1996, and she went on to become a Sunday Times bestseller with The Siege, which was described by Antony Beevor as a ‘world-class novel’ and was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel of the Year and the Orange Prize. Published in 2010, her eleventh novel, The Betrayal, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize, and The Lie in 2014 was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and the 2015 RSL Ondaatje Prize.
Her final novel, Birdcage Walk, deals with legacy and recognition – what writers, especially women writers, can expect to leave behind them – and was described by the Observer as ‘the finest novel Helen Dunmore has written’. She died in June 2017, and in January 2018, she was posthumously awarded the Costa Prize for her volume of poetry, Inside the Wave.
You won't find plastic fangs or Dulux blood in Helen Dunmore's perfect little ghost story ... Dunmore conveys a shivery menace and concealed tragedy; this is <b>the most elegant literary flesh-creeper since Susan Hill's <i>The Woman in Black</i>.</b>
The Times
This is a <b>haunting</b> and <b>exquisitely crafted</b> tale where the line between the real and the imaginary becomes blurred.
Glamour
<i>The Greatcoat</i> is a <b>well-written</b> ghost story that observes the traditions of the genre without subsiding into pastiche ... Dunmore uses motifs and themes as a kind of Greek chorus ... these are subtly deployed, and enhance the atmosphere in this <b>disturbing, thoughtful</b> novel.
The Literary Review
An <b>atmospheric and accomplished</b> ghost story.
Woman & Home
<b>A taut, elegantly written ghost story</b>… Wielding her skill at bringing history to life in the small, dismal details of the post-war period, and <b>showing off her talents as a poet in her mesmerising depiction of possession, Dunmore is on fine form here</b>.
The Sunday Times
The art of the ghost story requires delicate balance. The supernatural itself does not have to be convincing. It is enough that characters in the fiction are convinced by it. This was Scott's way in, to give only one example, <i>The Bride of Lammermoor</i> and also Buchan's in that remarkable and uncanny novel, The <i>Dancing Floor</i> and in his short stories about the supernatural. It is Dunmore's here too, in this <b>beautifully written tale</b>, and because she achieves this delicate balance, it comes off splendidly.
The Scotsman
the best kind of ghostly tale - one that has you pondering its implications - and checking the back of dark cupboards - long after the final page
i, Independent
Helen Dunmore's <b>exquisitely written ghost story</b> works its way with spooky subtlety into your imagination.
Mail on Sunday
A <b>powerful </b>evocation of period, and the tricks the mind can play on itself, its unadorned prose builds a <b>chilling</b> effect reminiscent of <i>The Turn of the Screw.</i>
Prospect
Her latest work is not a new departure but a development of familiar strengths: drawing us in to a compelling fictional world, populated by characters who live and love with vivid self-awareness. Dunmore has a sharp eye, and a fine-pen, for the hairline cracks in a new marriage ... Dunmore's gift, familiar from <i>The Siege </i>and <i>The Betrayal</i>, is to use a finely drawn domestic setting to show the great events of European history on a human scale.
Guardian
Produktdetaljer
Biographical note
Helen Dunmore was an award-winning novelist, children’s author and poet who will be remembered for the depth and breadth of her fiction. Rich and intricate, yet narrated with a deceptive simplicity that made all of her work accessible and heartfelt, her writing stood out for the fluidity and lyricism of her prose, and her extraordinary ability to capture the presence of the past.
Her first novel, Zennor in Darkness, explored the events which led D. H. Lawrence to be expelled from Cornwall on suspicion of spying, and won the McKitterick Prize. Her third novel, A Spell of Winter, won the inaugural Orange Prize for Fiction in 1996, and she went on to become a Sunday Times bestseller with The Siege, which was described by Antony Beevor as a ‘world-class novel’ and was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel of the Year and the Orange Prize. Published in 2010, her eleventh novel, The Betrayal, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize, and The Lie in 2014 was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and the 2015 RSL Ondaatje Prize.
Her final novel, Birdcage Walk, deals with legacy and recognition – what writers, especially women writers, can expect to leave behind them – and was described by the Observer as ‘the finest novel Helen Dunmore has written’. She died in June 2017, and in January 2018, she was posthumously awarded the Costa Prize for her volume of poetry, Inside the Wave.