Homestead - Softcover

Lippi, Rosina

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007105797 ISBN 13: 9780007105793

Publisher: Flamingo, 2001

Synopsis

The most moving debut novel of the year, shortlisted for the 2001 Orange Prize for Fiction.

Homestead is simply one of the most beautifully written and moving books it’s been our privilege to publish in years. It is also perfectly constituted to be a word-of-mouth bestseller (and its fate in the US bears this out; from very small beginnings at an obscure press in 1998, that is what is has gone to become, picking up the prestigious PEN/Hemingway Prize on its way to regional bestsellerdom in paperback).

Its focus is on the women of a remote Alpine village, where life revolves around farming – and more particularly, around milk and cheese – in a way it has done for generations. Though the sense of place is acute in the book, equally the experiences and emotions of the women at the heart of it are timeless. This community of a few hundred souls, where everyone not only knows but is related to everyone else, is, of course, the kind of environment that is fast disappearing in Europe – reminiscent of remote sheep-farming communities in mid-Wales or the Cumbrian hills or the Scottish highlands. This self-contained, traditional world is evoked with tenderness but without sentimentality or blinkers. The real world creeps up the mountain to the village all too often – for example, carrying off its menfolk to war, and blighting the women with more work still, and less aid. The book spans more or less the entire twentieth century, and puts at the heart of each chapter a different woman. The casual brilliance of Lippi’s storytelling can be devastating; the reader passes by a seemingly innocuous sentence, only to turn back and see blood and fire everywhere in it.

About this title

About the Author

rosina lippi spent nearly four years in Austria’s westernmost province, where Homestead is set. She lives and works now in Washington State. Homestead won the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award in the US.

From the Back Cover

'Winner of the Pen/Hemingway Award'

'Dear Anna,
It has been so long. I never meant it to be so long.
Please have patience.

Your Anton.
P.S. Please write to me here I am very lonely.'

In 1909, in the remote Alpine village of Rosenau (pop. 363), the postmistress has gathered a group of village women – the wives and daughters of dairy farmers and cheesemakers – to solve a problem. A postcard has arrived addressed to 'Anna Fink', who, because of the conventions of naming the close-knit community, might be any one of seven women. The mystery of the card's intended recipient – and its lovesick sender – preoccupies all of Rosenau, and takes one Anna, Anna of Bengat farm, on a profound inner journey.

By the time 'Homestead' closes, in 1977, we are on intimate terms with the life of Rosenau, governed by sun and snow, by the cycles of farming and dairying, by the intrusions of war, and by the passions of its people, their loves and losses, their petitions and nobility. In her remarkable first novel, Rosina Lippi gives us a world rich and strange, made known with stunning particularity and emotional precision.

"A novel of great depth, compassion and tenderness."
NEW YORK TIMES

"Beautifully written, rich in evocative detail of a lost, unique world."
WASHINGTON POST

Edition details

• Publisher: Flamingo
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0007105797
• ISBN 13: 9780007105793
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224