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Louis de Bernieres

    8 december 1954

    Louis de Bernières is een romanschrijver wiens vroege werken sterk putten uit Zuid-Amerikaanse literatuur en magisch realisme, wat leidde tot unieke stijlen en settings. Na diverse werkervaringen, waaronder het geven van Engelse les in Colombia, wordt zijn schrijven gekenmerkt door een rijke vertelstem en een diep begrip van de menselijke natuur. Zijn fictie verkent vaak thema's als oorlog, liefde en verlies, waarbij hij complexe personages en emotioneel resonerende verhalen creëert. Zijn vermogen om lezers mee te nemen naar werelden vol geschiedenis en verbeelding heeft hem brede erkenning opgeleverd.

    Kapitein Corelli's mandoline
    Het vrouwenleger van señor Vivo
    Een partizanendochter
    Kapitein Corelli's Mandoline
    Het vrouwenleger van Señor Vivo
    Vogels zonder vleugels
    • Light Over Liskeard

      • 304bladzijden
      • 11 uur lezen

      Sometimes we must look to the past to survive the future. A novel about what really matters in life from the bestselling author of Captain Corelli's Mandolin Q wants a simpler and safer life. His work as a quantum cryptographer for the government has led him to believe a crisis is imminent for civilisation and he's looking for somewhere to ride out what's ahead. He buys a ruined farmhouse in Cornwall and begins to build his own self-sufficient haven. Over the course of this quest he meets the eccentric characters who already live on the moors nearby - including the park ranger in charge of the reintroduced lynxes and aurochs that roam the area; a holy man waiting for the second coming on top of a nearby hill; an Arthurian knight on horseback and the amorous ghost of an Edwardian woman who haunts the farmhouse. As life in the cities gets more complicated, and our systems of electronic control begin to fall apart, Q flourishes in the wild Cornish countryside. His new way of life brings him back in tune with his teenage children, his ex-wife, and his own sense of who he is. He also grows close to Eva, energetic and enchanting, who is committed to her own quest for love and meaning. In this entertaining and heart-warming novel Louis de Berni res pokes fun at modern mores, and makes us reconsider what is really precious in our short and precarious lives.

      Light Over Liskeard2023
      3,4
    • The Autumn of the Ace

      • 288bladzijden
      • 11 uur lezen

      Louis de Bernieres is the master of historical fiction that makes you both laugh and cry, in the perfect nostalgic read to escape with this autumn. Is it ever too late to change your story? Daniel Pitt was an RAF fighter in the First World War and an espionage agent for the SOE in the Second.

      The Autumn of the Ace2020
      4,2
    • Accompanying publication to 'Perched', an exhibition of glass swallow works at the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden created by Felekşan Onar.

      Perched (German Edition)2020
    • Labels and Other Stories

      • 208bladzijden
      • 8 uur lezen

      Louis de Bernieres is one of our most treasured writers and these stories show his imaginative range and unique storytelling power. The collection includes 'Gunter Weber's Confession' which revisits characters from Captain Corelli. Full of wit, warmth and charm, Louis de Bernières' Labels and Other Stories features tales from throughout his career as a masterful storyteller and transports us around the globe, from the London Underground to Turkish ruins to the banks of the Amazon. De Bernières' unlikely and unforgettable heroes are found collecting luxury tinned cat-food labels, posting fish to the President, falling in love with dolphin deities and dining with Brazilian street thieves. And in 'Gunter Weber's Confession', we return once more to the Greek island of Captain Corelli's Mandolin and its much-loved characters. In this worldly and entertaining collection of stories, we are equally enchanted by familiar and fantastical occurrences, by de Bernières' wry sense of humour and powerful imagination.

      Labels and Other Stories2020
      3,9
    • So much life left over

      • 288bladzijden
      • 11 uur lezen

      Rosie and Daniel have moved to Ceylon with their little daughter to start a new life at the dawn of the 1920s, attempting to put the trauma of the First World War behind them, and to rekindle a marriage that gets colder every day. However, even in the lush plantation hills it is hard for them to escape the ties of home and the yearning for fulfilment that threatens their marriage. Back in England, Rosie's three sisters are dealing with different challenges in their searches for family, purpose and happiness. These are precarious times, and they find themselves using unconventional means to achieve their desires. Around them the world is changing, and when Daniel finds himself in Germany he witnesses events taking a dark and forbidding turn.

      So much life left over2018
      3,8
    • When a family tragedy means Mick is sent to the outback to live with his Granpa, it looks as if he has a lonely life ahead of him. The cattle station is a tough place for a child, where nature is brutal and the men must work hard in the heat and dust. However, after a cyclone hits, things change for Mick. Exploring the floodwaters, he finds a lost puppy covered in mud and half-drowned. Mick and his dog immediately become inseparable as they take on the adventures offered by their unusual home, and the business of growing up, together. In this charming prequel to the much-loved Red Dog, Louis de Bernieres tells the moving story of a young boy and his Granpa, and the charismatic and entertaining dog who so many readers hold close to their hearts.

      Blue Dog2017
      3,9
    • Of love and desire

      • 112bladzijden
      • 4 uur lezen

      Of Love and Desire is a rich collection of love poems from Louis de Bernières, written over a lifetime, and capturing its many forms – from rapture, infatuation, urgency, to sorrow, heartache and disillusion. Poetry was de Bernières’ first and greatest literary love, a passion evident in the musicality and emotion of his poems, which are full of stories and the truth of lived experience. This, his second collection, bears the mark of many influences, from the classical Persian poets, to Neruda, to Quintus Smyrnaeus, to Brian Patten. Beautifully illustrated by Donald Sammut, this is an indispensable companion on the lover’s journey.

      Of love and desire2016
      3,1
    • In the brief golden years of King Edward VII's reign, Rosie McCosh and her three very different sisters are growing up in an eccentric household in Kent, with their neighbours the Pitt boys on one side and the Pendennis boys on the other. But their days of childhood adventure are shadowed by the approach of war that will engulf them on the cusp of adulthood. When the boys end up scattered along the Western Front, Rosie faces the challenges of life for those left behind. Confused by her love for two young men - one an infantry soldier and one a flying ace - she has to navigate her way through extraordinary times. Can she, and her sisters, build new lives out of the opportunities and devastations that follow the Great War? Louis de Bernières' magnificent and moving novel follows the lives of an unforgettable cast of characters as they strike out to seek what happiness can be built from the ruins of the old world.

      The Dust That Falls from Dreams2015
      3,6
    • Un immense asile de fous

      Récits d'un village anglais

      • 330bladzijden
      • 12 uur lezen

      Un Français a un jour déclaré que l'Angleterre est le pays le plus exotique d'Europe, ajoutant qu'il s'agit d'un « énorme asile de fous ». Dans sa nouvelle œuvre, Louis de Bernières évoque un village du Surrey où il a grandi dans les années soixante et soixante-dix. En tant que véritable romancier, il ne peut s'empêcher de s'éloigner de la vérité, racontant des histoires d'une Angleterre disparue, où une dame pouvait s'habiller en homme et chasser les écureuils avec un fusil, où un général à la retraite pouvait se promener nu, et où il était tout à fait normal de se confier à une araignée vivant dans un abri de jardin. « La Britannique est vraiment un grand blizzard. C'est l'une des caractéristiques qui nous distingue des autres nations. Nous avons une conception très flexible de ce qui est normal. Nous sommes, à certains égards, rigides et formels, mais nous croyons au droit à l'excentricité, à condition que ces excentricités soient suffisamment grandes. Pour les petites, nous ne sommes pas du tout aussi tolérants. Prenez garde si vous tenez mal un couteau, mais vous êtes le bienvenu si vous portez un pagne et vivez dans un arbre. »

      Un immense asile de fous2010
      4,0
    • Casting his mind back to the village in southern Surrey where he grew up in the sixties and seventies, but plagued by a novelist's inability to stick to the truth, Louis de Bernieres brings us in "Notwithstanding" stories of a vanished England which will delight readers of his much-loved novels. The English village was a place where an old lady might dress as a man in plus fours and spend her time shooting squirrels with a twelve bore, or keep a vast menagerie in her house. A retired general might give up wearing clothes, a spiritualist might live in a cottage with her sister and the ghost of her husband, and people might think it quite natural to confide in a spider that lives in a potting shed. De Bernieres' characters roam through the book, appearing in each others' stories and painting a picture of an entire community.

      Notwithstanding : stories from an English village2009
      3,7
    • Een partizanendochter

      • 200bladzijden
      • 7 uur lezen

      Een middelbare man denkt met weemoed aan de erotische verhalen die een jonge Servische hem opdiste.

      Een partizanendochter2008
      3,2
    • Co dělal Mehmet Erbil o dni volna

      • 31bladzijden
      • 2 uur lezen

      Kouzelný příběh o jednom (obyčejném) dni dvou lidí v Turecku - zahraničního botanika, studujícího tamní floru a místního učitele, který si přivydělává sběrem kovových plechovek od nápojů.

      Co dělal Mehmet Erbil o dni volna2005
      4,4
    • Vogels zonder vleugels

      • 565bladzijden
      • 20 uur lezen

      In his first novel since Corelli’s Mandolin , Louis de Bernières creates a world, populates it with characters as real as our best friends, and launches it into the maelstrom of twentieth-century history. The setting is a small village in southwestern Anatolia in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire. Everyone there speaks Turkish, though they write it in Greek letters. It’s a place that has room for a professional blasphemer; where a brokenhearted aga finds solace in the arms of a Circassian courtesan who isn’t Circassian at all; where a beautiful Christian girl named Philothei is engaged to a Muslim boy named Ibrahim. But all of this will change when Turkey enters the modern world. Epic in sweep, intoxicating in its sensual detail, Birds Without Wings is an enchantment.

      Vogels zonder vleugels2004
      4,2
    • Het vrouwenleger van señor Vivo

      roman

      • 264bladzijden
      • 10 uur lezen

      Een Zuid-Amerikaanse leraar filosofie, die de drugsmafia aanklaagt in de krant, vindt regelmatig als afschrikmiddel een lijk in zijn tuin.

      Het vrouwenleger van señor Vivo2003
    • Tento krátký příběh určitě potěší všechny zájemce o vtipný, až černý humor. Našimi hrdiny jsou manželé Freemanovi, dokonalý pár velmi hodných lidí, kteří se oddaně milují, miluje je i okolí, prostě dokonalé štěstí. Ale jak se říká, zlým lidem se někdy narodí hodné dítě, a hodným lidem se narodí zlý potomek. A to je jediný problém našeho páru - jejich syn Vinnie. Je to DĚSIVÉ dítě, které je naprosto ničí. Ani dětský psychoterapeut nemůže nic jiného konstatovat, než že Vinnieho nelze léčit, protože je prostě nesnesitelně zlomyslný. A tak se naše dvojce rozhodne k drastickému kroku. Jejich společnou vášní je Turecko a jejich obyvatelé, protože to s dětmi (a domácími zvířátky) tak báječně umí. Pokud čekáte nějaké "krvavé" řešení problému jménem Vinnie, tak jste na omylu. Ale je fakt, že až tak normální řešení to není. Je zcela ve stylu příběhu. Nic Robertovi a Susan nelze vyčítat. Každý druhý by udělal určitě něco horšího, mnohem horšího.

      Turci to s dětmi tak báječně umí2003
      3,9
    • Captain Corelli's Mandolin

      The Illustrated Film Companion

      • 192bladzijden
      • 7 uur lezen

      The island of Cephallonia is now familiar as the setting of the novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin. This book explores the turbulent history of the island, focusing on the World War II years of Italian occupation, as well as telling the behind-the-scenes story of how the film version was made. The filmmakers have added their own visions, carefully explained here in an official companion to the movie, and de Bernieres' introduction shows how he anticipated that. All he could do to ensure respectful treatment of his novel was insist it should not be sold to Hollywood. The history of the filming is itself fascinating—the search for the cast, the locations, even the guns for the battle sequences. Film journalist Steve Clark has done a good job here, aided and abetted by the stunning Greek island setting and ample action and character stills from the film.

      Captain Corelli's Mandolin2001
      4,1
    • Red Dog

      • 119bladzijden
      • 5 uur lezen

      'In early 1998 I went to Perth in Western Australia in order to attend the literature festival, and part of the arrangement was that I should go to Karratha to do their first ever literary dinner. Karratha is a mining town a long way further north. The landscape is extraordinary, being composed of vast heaps of dark red earth and rock poking out of the never-ending bush. I imagine that Mars must have a similar feel to it. I went exploring and discovered the bronze statue to Red Dog outside the town of Dampier. I felt straight away that I had to find out more about this splendid dog. A few months later I returned to Western Australia and spent two glorious weeks driving around collecting Red Dog stories and visiting the places that he knew, writing up the text as I went along. I hope my cat never finds out that I have written a story to celebrate the life of a dog.'

      Red Dog2001
      3,8
    • While the economy of his small South American country collapses, President Veracruz joins his improbable populace of ex-soldiers, former guerillas, unfrocked priests and reformed - though by no means inactive - whores, in a bizarre search for sexual fulfillment. But for Cardinal Guzman, a man tormented by his own private demons, their stupendous, hedonistic fiestas represent the epicenter of all heresies. Heresies that must be challenged with a horrifying new inquisition destined to climax in a spectacular confrontation... The second part of a trilogy, following "The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts, which won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Fiction.

      The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman1998
      4,0
    • When the spoilt and haughty Dona Constanza tries to divert a river to fill her swimming pool, she starts a running battle with the locals. The skirmishes are so severe that the Government dispatches a squadron of soldiers led by the fat, brutal and stupid Figueras to deal with them. Despite visiting plagues of laughing fits and giant cats upon the troops, the villagers know that to escape the cruel and unusual tortures planned for them, they must run. Thus they plan to head for the mountains and start a new and convivial civilization. "The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts is the first novel in a trilogy set in South America. It won a Commonwealth Writers Prize in 1991.

      The war of Don Emmanuel's nether parts1997
      4,1
    • De dochter van een Griekse dokter wordt tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog gescheiden van haar geliefde, een kapitein in het Italiaanse leger.

      Kapitein Corelli's Mandoline1994
      4,0
    • Het vrouwenleger van Señor Vivo

      • 264bladzijden
      • 10 uur lezen

      Louis de Bernières is a masterful writer, showcasing his skills in character creation, innovative description, and storytelling. From the outset, as Dionisio Vivo and Ramón "Cochinillo" Dario encounter a cravate corpse left by coca lords, readers are drawn into the world of Ipasueño, filled with passion, irony, and political intrigue. Dionisio, a philosophy professor, writes letters for La Prensa condemning the coca trade, launching the narrative into a whirlwind of subplots. Among these are the epic love affair between Dionisio and Anica Moreno, and Lazaro's tragic struggle with leprosy. Fans of Bernières's previous work will also enjoy the return of magical jaguars and characters from Cochadebajo de los Gatos. The plot unfolds as a grand tragicomedy, blending expected devastation with unexpected joy, all infused with Bernières's playful tone. Set in a mythical South American country that reflects real history and the author's imagination, this book is a captivating companion for any south-of-the-border adventure, rich with the realities and flavors of South America and the whimsical genius of Bernières.

      Het vrouwenleger van Señor Vivo1992
      4,0