Apeirogon

From the New York Times bestselling, National Book Award-winning, Booker Prize-longlisted author of Let the Great World Spin and Transatlantic comes the novel of a lifetime: about two men and their daughters, divided by conflict yet united in grief

Rami Elhanan and Bassam Aramin live near one another - yet they exist worlds apart. Rami is Israeli. Bassam is Palestinian. Rami's license plate is yellow. Bassam's license plate is green. It takes Rami fifteen minutes to drive to the West Bank. The same journey for Bassam takes an hour and a half. Both men have lost their daughters. Rami's thirteen-year-old girl Smadar was killed by a suicide bomber while out shopping with her friends. Bassam's ten-year-old daughter Abir was shot and killed by a member ofthe border police outside her school. There was a candy bracelet in her pocket she hadn't had time to eat yet. The men become the best of friends. In this epic novel - named for a shape with a countably infinite number of sides - Colum McCann crosses centuries and continents, stitching time, art, history, nature and politics into a tapestry of friendship, love, loss and belonging. Musical, muscular, delicate and soaring, it is a book for our times from a writer at the height of his powers.

Distinguished by empathy and intelligence, this book marks a new threshold of writing ... Apeirogon will have a strong effect on all those who read it and, remarkably, could lead to great consequences for the future ... Sometimes books can do this

Vorwort
From the New York Times bestselling, National Book Award-winning, Booker Prize-longlisted author of Let the Great World Spin and Transatlantic comes the novel of a lifetime: about two men and their daughters, divided by conflict yet united in grief

Autorentext

Colum McCann is the author of six novels and three collections of stories. His most recent novel, TransAtlantic, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2013, and his previous novel, Let the Great World Spin, won the National Book Award, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and was a New York Times bestseller. His work has been published in forty languages and has received many international honours, including a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, election to the Irish arts academy and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the 2010 Best Foreign Novel Award in China and an Oscar nomination. He is the co-founder of the non-profit global story exchange organisation, Narrative 4, and he teaches at the MFA program in Hunter College. He was born in Dublin and lives in New York. colummccann.com

Klappentext

Apeirogon: a shape with a countably infinite number of sides.

Rami Elhanan and Bassam Aramin are two men. Rami's license plate is yellow. Bassam's license plate is green. It takes Rami fifteen minutes to drive to the West Bank. The same journey for Bassam, down the same streets, takes an hour and a half.

Both men are fathers. Both men are fathers of daughters. Both daughters were there, before they were gone.

Rami's daughter Smadar was killed by a Palestinian suicide bomb in 1997. Bassem's daughter Abir was born in the same year; and ten years later, she was shot and killed by a member of Israeli border police while standing outside her school. There was a candy bracelet in her pocket that she hadn't had time to eat.

Rami and Bassam's lives are completely symmetrical. Rami and Bassam's lives are completely asymmetrical. Rami and Bassam are friends.

Unfolding its infinite sides one by one, framing the two men who stand at its heart, the boundlessly exquisite Apeirogon is an exhilarating new form, and confirms Colum McCann as one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. In a kaleidoscopic palimpsest scratched without end over an ancient city, it etches out a timeless question: how do we continue to live after the most precious thing is lost?

Zusammenfassung
CHOSEN AS A BOOK OF 2020 BY THE SUNDAY TIMES, OBSERVER, GUARDIAN, i PAPER, FINANCIAL TIMES, NEW STATESMAN, SCOTSMAN, IRISH TIMES, BBC.COM, WATERSTONES.COM 'Nothing like any book you've ever read' MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM 'An essential hymn to peace and forgiveness' independent.co.uk The novel of a lifetime about two men and their daughters: divided by conflict, yet united in grief. Rami Elhanan and Bassam Aramin live near one another - yet they exist worlds apart. Rami is Israeli. Bassam is Palestinian. Rami's license plate is yellow. Bassam's license plate is green. It takes Rami fifteen minutes to drive to the West Bank. The same journey for Bassam takes an hour and a half. Both men have lost their daughters. Rami's thirteen-year-old girl Smadar was killed by a suicide bomber while out shopping with her friends. Bassam's ten-year-old daughter Abir was shot and killed by a member of the border police outside her school. There was a candy bracelet in her pocket she hadn't had time to eat yet. The men become the best of friends. In this epic novel - named for a shape with a countably infinite number of sides - Colum McCann crosses centuries and continents, stitching time, art, history, nature and politics into a tapestry of friendship, love, loss and belonging. Musical, muscular, delicate and soaring, Apeirogon is the novel for our times. 'A quite extraordinary novel. Colum McCann has found the form and voice to tell the most complex of stories, with an unexpected friendship between two men at its powerfully beating heart' KAMILA SHAMSIE