On the Black Hill - Hardcover

Chatwin, Bruce

3.98

3,707 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0224019805 ISBN 13: 9780224019804

Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1982

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An elegantly written tale of identical twin brothers who grow up on a farm in rural Wales and never leave home. In depicting the lives of Benjamin and Lewis and their interactions with their small local community, Chatwin comments movingly on the larger questions of human experience. "From the Trade Paperback edition."

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Review:

Bruce Chatwin's fascination with nomads and wanderlust represents itself in reverse in On the Black Hill, a tale of two brothers (identical twins) who never go anywhere. They stay in the farmhouse on the English-Welsh border where they were born, tilling the rough soil and sleeping in the same bed, touched only occasionally by the advance of the 20th century. Smacking of a Welsh Ethan Frome, Chatwin evokes the lonely tragedies of farm life, and above all the vibrant land of Wales.

Review:

"His deepest and best book" (Independent)

"When I think of Bruce Chatwin now, I think of the ultimate storyteller. It’s the resonance of the voice and the depth of his vision that makes him one of the truly great writers of our time" (Werner Herzog, from 'Bruce Chatwin' by Nicholas Shakespeare)

"Nearly every writer of my generation in England has wanted, at some point, to be Bruce Chatwin; wanted, like him, to talk of Fez and Firdausi, Nigeria and Nuristan, with equal authority; wanted to be talked about, as he is, with raucous envy; wanted above all to have written his books...(he was) a writer no one who cares for literature can afford not to read." (Andrew Harvey New York Times)

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