Extravagant, inventive, emotionally sweeping, Captain Corelli's Mandolin is the story of a timeless place that one day wakes up to find itself in the jaws of history. The place is the Greek island of Cephallonia, where gods once dabbled in the affairs of men and the local saint periodically rises from his sarcophagus to cure the mad. Then the tide of World War II rolls onto the island's shores in the form of the conquering Italian army.

Caught in the occupation are Pelagia, a willful, beautiful young woman, and the two suitors vying for her love: Mandras, a gentle fisherman turned ruthless guerilla, and the charming, mandolin-playing Captain Corelli, a reluctant officer of the Italian garrison on the island. Rich with loyalties and betrayals, and set against a landscape where the factual blends seamlessly with the fantastic, Captain Corelli's Mandolin is a passionate novel as rich in ideas as it is genuinely moving.

Louis de Bernieres' profile page

Among Louis de Bernières’ bestselling novels are Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman, Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord and The War of Don Emmanuel’s Nether Parts. He lives in London.

"Brims with all the grand topics of literature — love and death, heroism and skull-duggery, humor and pathos, not to mention art and religion…A good old-fashioned novel."
—Washington Post Book World
"An exuberant mixture of history and romance, written with a wit that is incandescent"
—Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Stunning…A high-spirited historical romance…Remarkable."
—The New York Times Book Review

"His novel will give pleasure to all sorts of readers. It is also so good that it will last."
—A.S. Byatt writing in Evening Standard
"Captain Corelli’s Mandolin is an emotional, funny, stunning novel which swings with wide smoothness between joy and bleakness, personal lives and history…it’s lyrical and angry, satirical and earnest."
—Observer
"A wonderful, hypnotic novel of fabulous scope and tremendous iridescent charm."
—Joseph Heller

"It is funny, heartbreaking, and horrifying in its fictional testimony….Captain Corelli's Mandolin, delightful and sad, comic and at the same time nearly unbearable in its portrayal of European darkness during the war, is a tour de force depiction of the triumph of life over evil by one of Europe's great comic writers of our time."
—Booklist
"Dazzling.…a fabulous book in the tradition of Tolstoy and Dickens.…So joyous and heartbreaking, so rich and musical and wise, that reading it is like discovering anew the enchanting power of fiction."
—San Francisco Chronicle