Rosalind Belben is een gevierde Engelse romanschrijfster, wiens werk wordt gekenmerkt door scherp psychologisch inzicht en een verfijnde vertelstijl. In haar romans exploreert ze meesterlijk complexe relaties en de innerlijke wereld van haar personages, vaak met een subtiele mix van humor en melancholie. Haar schrijven wordt zeer gewaardeerd om zijn originaliteit en het vermogen om de ongrijpbare aspecten van het leven te vangen. Belben is een belangrijke stem in de hedendaagse Britse literatuur.
Philomena is requisitioned from a Dorset field in the summer of 1914, and serves with the yeomanry in Egypt and Palestine until the end of the First World War. Faint news of her reaches Griselda Romney, her old owner. The impulsive Griselda, taking with her little Amabel and, of course, Nanny, sails for Egypt - to find Philomena and bring her home.
"Anna has married an Italian seaman, Ilario. Beginning-and ending-at a point shortly before her death, the story told in The Limit draws upon her past and his future to focus attention, with increasing intensity, along the lines of narrowing perspective. In each chapter, dying becomes an appraisal of memory, a confession, perhaps, of secrets shred and not shared. In the ten years of the couple's marriage, the limits of devotion had somehow to be reached. And yet, when Anna can no longer speak, appears to understand nothing, Ilario feels at his closest to her: Anna, so old, ill, and wasted, is a child again. The Limit, inevitably, is not about dying, but living. To read it is to have one's perception and humanity heightened"-- Provided by publisher
This intimate portrait of a woman approaching middle age observes her thoughts and dreams as she tours Venice and the Scottish highlands. She recalls her country childhood, her relationship with her mother and describes an acute sexual frustration which pervades her lonely life.