Book description
When they spoke of it in town, they called it simply
the city, as if it was the only city in the world . . .
Raised in a remote village on the edge of a sugarcane plantation,
Isabel was born with the gift and curse of ‘seeing farther’. When
drought and war grip their land, her beloved brother Isaias joins a
great exodus to a teeming, labyrinthine city in the south.
Soon the fourteen-year-old Isabel follows, forsaking the only home
she’s ever known, her sole consolation the thought of being with her
brother again. But when she arrives, she discovers that Isaias has
disappeared. Weeks and then months pass, until one day, armed only with
her unshakeable hope, Isabel descends into the chaos of the city to find
him.
Told with extraordinary empathy, richly evocative, the story of
Isabel’s quest - of her dignity and determination, her deeply spiritual
world - becomes a universal tale about the bonds of family and a
sister’s love for her brother, about being caught between two worlds,
and about true heroism. A tour de force of emotional and narrative
power, it is destined to become a classic.
‘Mason is a superb storyteller. He inhabits Isabel’s mind with fine
sensitivity, and cleverly uses his imaginary setting to write of
dauntless, timeless love and loyalty’ The Times
Daniel Mason is the author of The Piano Tuner
. This is his second novel. He currently lives in California.
