Finalista al Booker Prize 2024
La esperada nueva novela de la autora de Piezas en fuga, ganadora del Orange Prize y del Guardian Fiction Prize y Una de las cien novelas que dan forma al mundo según la BBC: una historia arrolladora e íntima de amor y lealtad entre generaciones.

«La poderosa novela de Anne Michaels no podría ser más oportuna: la guerra y sus daños, pasando de generación en generación a lo largo de un siglo».—Margaret Atwood

1917. En un campo de batalla cerca del río Escaut, John yace sin poder moverse ni sentir las piernas tras una explosión. Luchando por concentrar sus pensamientos, se pierde en la memoria mientras cae la nieve.

En 1920 John ha regresado de la guerra a North Yorkshire. Está vivo, pero no entero. Vive con Helena y reabre su negocio de fotografía, intenta seguir viviendo, pero el pasado irrumpe insistentemente en el presente, cuando los fantasmas empiezan a aparecer en sus fotografías.

Así comienza una narración que abarca cuatro generaciones de conexiones que se encienden y reencienden a medida que avanza el siglo y a veces, en momentos radiantes de deseo y trascendencia, unas chispas vuelan hacia arriba, obrando sus transformaciones décadas después.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024 • LONGLISTED FOR THE GILLER PRIZE • A breathtaking and ineffable new novel from the author of the international best sellers Fugitive Pieces and The Winter Vault—a novel of love and loyalty across generations, at once sweeping and intimate

1917. On a battlefield near the River Escaut, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory as the snow falls—a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night.

1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near a different river. He is alive but still not whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and tries to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his pictures: ghosts with messages he cannot understand.

So begins a narrative that spans four generations of connections and consequences that ignite and reignite as the century unfolds. In radiant moments of desire, comprehension, longing, and transcendence, the sparks fly upward, working their transformations decades later.

Held is affecting and intensely beautiful, full of mystery, wisdom, and compassion, a novel by a writer at the height of her powers.

Anne Michaels is a writer based in Toronto. Her novel, Fugitive Pieces, won the Trillium Prize and the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award in Canada, the Orange Prize and the Guardian Fiction Award in the UK, and a Lannan Literary Award for Fiction in the US. Her two poetry collections, The Weight of Oranges and Miner's Pond, have received high acclaim.

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