The Last of the Vostyachs

Author(s): Diego Marani; Judith Landry (Translator)

Fiction

The Last of the Vostyachs won two literary prizes in Italy: The Premio Campiello and The Premio Stresa. As a child, Ivan and his father work as forced labourers in a mine in Siberia, the father having committed some minor offence against the regime. Ivan’s father is then murdered in front of his young son, after which Ivan who is a Vostyach, an imaginary ethnic group of whose language he is the last remaining speaker is struck dumb by what he has witnessed. Some twenty years later the guards desert their posts and Ivan walks free, together with the other inmates. Guided by some mysterious power, he returns to the region he originally came from... "A 'genius' Helsinki mystery with a touch of The Killing." Nick Lezard in The Guardian


Product Information

* Widespread review coverage in major Australian and New Zealand newspapers such as Age, Sydney Morning Herald, Courier Mail, West Australian, Dominion Post, The Press and NZ Herald * Widespread review coverage in major Australian and New Zealand general and literary publications such as The Big Issue, NZ Listener, Kill Your Darlings and North & South * Widespread review coverage in literary magazines such as Australian Book Review, Monthly and Kill Your Darlings * Widespread review coverage on blogs such as LiteraryMinded and Crikey's Liticism * Interviews in major newspapers such as the Sydney Morning Herald/Age * Extensive radio interviews across Australian and New Zealand to coincide with author tour * Author tour confirmed for May 2013 in Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington, Sydney and Melbourne * Early reading copies available to the trade * Budget for bookseller catalogues * Advertising in literary publications such as the ABR and The Monthly * Social media campaign * Featured in Text's newsletter and website

Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2012.

'When I reviewed New Finnish Grammar, I edged towards using the word "genius" to describe Marani. I'm doing so again now.' Guardian 'A roller-coaster ride whisking the reader alternatively through zones of darkness, hilarity, cruelty, tenderness, the near-lubricious...There's something for almost everyone.' PEN 'A riot of comic unpredictability.' Times Literary Supplement 'Marani's miraculous novel is profound, moving, elusive and tragic.' Books of the Year, Irish Times on New Finnish Grammar 'We soon forget we are reading an English translation of an Italian novel. Sheer narrative vim is one reason for this...What gives New Finnish Grammar its true interest, however, is its evocation of a place and language foreign to the author yet, to all appearances, intimately familiar.' Times Literary Supplement on New Finnish Grammar 'This is an extraordinary book, as good as Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient and with a similar mystery at its heart.' Spectator's Books of the Year on New Finnish Grammar 'Beautifully written and translated, and beautifully original.' Times on New Finnish Grammar 'It is wise and well crafted. Beautifully written-what a translation!' Craig Sherborne on New Finnish Grammar 'A well-paced dissection of what drives a man to kill to survive, to forget to to preserve a past, then lose it all just when the storm clouds are drifting away. Verdict: Unforgettable search for memory.' Courier Mail on New Finnish Grammar 'New Finnish Grammar is a plangent oddity, a story of ethical tribulation and solitary sorrow.' Age / Sydney Morning Herald on New Finnish Grammar 'This is a stunner...Marani's tale is deeply satisfying...This is language to be savoured, enjoyed and revisited...One of the most astonishingly beautiful books I have read.' Sunday Star Times on New Finnish Grammar 'New Finnish Grammar is truly a marvel...the philosophical and psychological implications of the connection between memory, language and self will leave you deep in thought for some time after turning the final page.' ArtsHub on New Finnish Grammar 'New Finnish Grammar explores the curious theme of language and how it shapes our identities. Fans of Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient will revel in this forgotten gem.' The Big Issue on New Finnish Grammar 'I wish I had the time and energy to learn by heart some of the many passages in this excellent book in which the Finnish language is evoked as an entity more strange and compelling than even the characters who speak it or write letters in it or struggle to comprehend its power and mystery.' Gerald Murnane on New Finnish Grammar

Diego Marani was born in Ferrara in 1959. He has worked as a translator and policy officer for the European Commission and has written several other novels, collections of essays and short stories. Marani's earlier novel, New Finnish Grammar, was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Award and the Best Translated Book Award. Judith Landry won the 2012 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize for her translation of New Finnish Grammar.

General Fields

  • : 9781922079688
  • : Text Publishing Company
  • : Text Publishing Company
  • : 0.26
  • : April 2013
  • : 234mm X 153mm
  • : Australia
  • : February 2013
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Diego Marani; Judith Landry (Translator)
  • : Paperback
  • : New edition
  • : English
  • : 853.92
  • : very good
  • : 208