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Fiction Literary

Famous Last Words

by (author) Timothy Findley

foreword by Alberto Manguel

Publisher
Penguin Group Canada
Initial publish date
Jun 2005
Category
Literary, Military, World War II
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780143051411
    Publish Date
    Jun 2005
    List Price
    $21.00

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Description

In the final days of the Second World War, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley scrawls his desperate account on the walls and ceilings of his ice-cold prison high in the Austrian Alps. Officers of the liberating army discover his frozen, disfigured corpse and his astonishing testament—the sordid truth that he alone possessed. Fascinated but horrified, they learn of a dazzling array of characters caught up in scandal and political corruption. The exiled Duke and Duchess of Windsor, von Ribbentrop, Hitler, Charles Lindbergh, Sir Harry Oakes—all play sinister parts in an elaborate scheme to secure world domination.

About the authors

Timothy Findley (1930-2002) was one of Canada's most compelling and best-loved writers. He is the author of The Wars, which won the Governor General's Award and established him as one of Canada's leading writers, as well as Pilgrim and The Piano Man's Daughter, both finalists for The Giller Prize. His other novels, Headhunter, The Telling Of Lies, The Last Of The Crazy People, The Butterfly Plague, Famous Last Words, Not Wanted On The Voyage, and Spadework; his novella, You Went Away; and his short fiction, Dinner Along The Amazon, Stones, and Dust To Dust, have won numerous awards and are well loved both in Canada and internationally.

Elizabeth Rex won the Governor General's Award for Drama and The Stillborn Lover won a Chalmers Award. His works of non-fiction include Inside Memory and From Stone Orchard.

Timothy Findley was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

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Timothy Findley's profile page

Internationally acclaimed as an anthologist, translator, essayist, novelist, and editor, Alberto Manguel is the bestselling author of several award-winning books, including A Dictionary of Imaginary Places, with Gianni Guadalupi, and A History of Reading. Manguel grew up in Israel, where his father was the Argentinian ambassador.

In the mid-1980s, Manguel moved to Toronto where he lived for twenty years. Manguel's novel, News from a Foreign Country Came, won the McKitterick Prize in 1992. During the 1990s, he wrote regularly for the Globe & Mail (Toronto), the Times Literary Supplement (London), the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Review of Books, the New York Times, and the Svenska Dagbladet (Stockholm). In 2000, Manguel moved to the Poitou-Charentes region of France, where he and his partner purchased and renovated a medieval farmhouse. Among the renovations is an oak-panelled library housing Manguel's collection of 30,000 books.

Célébrité internationale à plus d’un titre — il est anthologiste, traducteur, essayiste, romancier et éditeur — Alberto Manguel est l’auteur du Dictionnaire des lieux imaginaires, en collaboration avec Gianni Guadalupi, et d’une Histoire de la lecture, entre autres succès de librairie. Manguel a grandi en Israël où son père était ambassadeur de l’Argentine.

Au milieu des années 1980, Manguel s’installe à Toronto où il vivra pendant vingt ans. Il reçoit le McKitterick Prize en 1992 pour son roman News from a Foreign Country Came (Dernières nouvelles d'une terre abandonnée). Pendant les années 1990, il a été collaborateur régulier au Globe & Mail (Toronto), au Times Literary Supplement (Londres), au Sydney Morning Herald, au Australian Review of Books, au New York Times et au Svenska Dagbladet (Stockholm). Depuis 2000, Manguel habite la région française de Poitou-Charentes, dans une maison de ferme du Moyen-Âge qu’il a achetée et remise à neuf avec son compagnon. Parmi les rénovations, une bibliothèque lambrissée de chêne qui abrite les 30 000 livres de la collection de Manguel.

Alberto Manguel's profile page

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