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The Eighth Life

(For Brilka) The International Bestseller
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Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
The Eighth Life by Nino Haratischvili is an epic tale spanning several generations of a Georgian family throughout the tumultuous events of the 20th century. The story intricately weaves together personal and political struggles, centring on the familyโ€™s connections to history, revolution, and change. It explores themes of love, loss, and resilience against the backdrop of a changing world.
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Format: Paperback / softback
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

You might enjoy this book if you appreciate epic family sagas intertwined with the tumultuous history of the 20th-century Soviet Union. Its richly drawn characters and dramatic storytelling will appeal to those who love immersive narratives that span generations and explore themes of love, betrayal, and resilience.

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Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

That night Stasia took an oath, swearing to learn the recipe by heart and destroy the paper. And when she was lying in her bed again, recalling the taste with all her senses, she was sure that this secret recipe could heal wounds, avert catastrophes, and bring people happiness. But she was wrong.

At the start of the twentieth century, on the edge of the Russian Empire, a family prospers. It owes its success to a delicious chocolate recipe, passed down the generations with great solemnity and caution. A caution which is justifiedโ€”this is a recipe for ecstasy that carries a very bitter aftertaste.

Stasia learns it from her Georgian father and takes it north, following her new husband, Simon, to his posting at the centre of the Russian Revolution in St Petersburg. Stasia's is only the first in a symphony of grand but all too often doomed romances that swirl from sweet to sour in this epic tale of the red century.

Tumbling down the years, and across vast expanses of longing and loss, generation after generation of this compelling family hears echoes and sees reflections. Great characters and greater relationships come and go and come again; the world shakes, and shakes some more, and the reader rejoices to have found at last one of those glorious old books in which you can live and learn, be lost and found, and make indelible new friends.

It is a great read. If you love historical sagas and romances, this is the book for you. -ABC Radio National The Bookshelf

A harrowing, heartening and utterly engrossing epic novel ... astonishing ... A subtle and compelling translation by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin (on the heels of a Georgian version earlier this year) should make this as great a literary phenomenon in English as it has been in German. -Maya Jaggi, The Guardian

If it's a family saga you're seeking, look no further than this grand tale...The author gracefully interweaves the historical backdrop of her novel with the lives of her characters, thus adding depth to her story. Heartily recommended. STARRED REVIEW -Library Journal

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781922310484

Publisher: Scribe Publications

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 29 September 2020

Country: Australia

Imprint: Scribe Publications

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 62.0mm

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 197.0mm

Weight: 738g

Pages: 944

About the Author

Nino Haratischvili (Author) Nino Haratischvili was born in Georgia in 1983, and is an award-winning novelist, playwright, and theatre director. At home in two different worlds, each with their own language, she has been writing in both German and Georgian since the age of twelve. In 2010, her debut novel Juja was nominated for the German Book Prize, as was her most recent Die Katze und der General in 2018. In its German edition, The Eighth Life was a bestseller, and won the Anna Seghers Prize, the Lessing Prize Stipend, and the Bertolt Brecht Prize 2018. It is being translated into many languages, and has already been a major bestseller on publication in Holland, Poland, and Georgia. Charlotte Collins (Translator) Charlotte Collins studied English Literature at Cambridge University and worked as an actor and radio journalist in Germany and the UK before becoming a literary translator. Her co-translation, with Ruth Martin, of Nino Haratischvili's The Eighth Life won the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, and in 2017 she was awarded the Goethe-Institut's Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize for Robert Seethaler's A Whole Life. Other translations include Seethaler's The Tobacconist, Homeland by Walter Kempowski, and Olga by Bernhard Schlink. Ruth Martin (Translator) Ruth Martin studied English literature before gaining a PhD in German. She has been translating fiction and nonfiction books since 2010, by authors ranging from Joseph Roth and Hannah Arendt to Volker Weidermann and Shida Bazyar. She has taught translation at the University of Kent and the Bristol Translates summer school, and is a former co-chair of the Society of Authors Translators Association.

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