Book description
Helen Dunmore follows the lives of four ordinary people, united by
love, trying to survive the siege of Leningrad in her powerful
historical novel The Siege.
Leningrad, September 1941. Hitler orders the German forces to
surround the city at the start of the most dangerous, desperate winter
in its history. For two pairs of lovers - Anna and Andrei, Anna's
novelist father and banned actress Marina - the siege becomes a battle
for survival. They will soon discover what it is like to be so hungry
you boil shoe leather to make soup, so cold you burn furniture and
books. But this is not just a struggle to exist, it is also a fight to
keep the spark of hope alive...
The Siege is a brilliantly imagined novel of war and the
wounds it inflicts on ordinary people's lives, and a profoundly moving
celebration of love, life and survival.
'Remarkable, affecting...there are few more interesting stories than
this; and few writers who could have told it better' Rachel Cusk,
Daily Telegraph
'Literary writing of the highest order set against a background if
suffering so intimately reconstructed it is hard to believe that
Dunmore was not there' Richard Overy, Sunday Telegraph
'Utterly convincing. A deeply moving account of two love stories in
terrible circumstances. The story of their struggle to survive appears
simple, as all great literature should. . . a world-class novel'
Antony Beevor, The Times
Novelist and poet Helen Dunmore has achieved great critical acclaim
since publishing her first adult novel, the McKitterick Prize winning,
Zennor in Darkness. Her novels, Counting the Stars,
Your Blue-Eyed Boy, With Your Crooked Heart,
Burning Bright, House of Orphans, Mourning
Ruby,
A Spell of Winter, and Talking to the Dead, and her
collection of short stories Love of Fat Men are all published
by Penguin.
Helen Dunmore has published six novels with Viking and Penguin:
ZENNOR IN DARKNESS, which won the McKitterick Prize; BURNING BRIGHT; A
SPELL OF WINTER, which won the Orange Prize; TALKING TO DEAD; YOUR
BLUE-EYED BOY; and WITH YOUR HEART CROOKED HEART. She is also a poet,
children's novelist and short-story writer; her two collections of short
stories, LOVE OF FAT MEN and ICE CREAM, are also published by Viking and
Penguin. She lives in Bristol.
