Breakfast with the Nikolides: A Virago Modern Classic - Softcover

Godden, Rumer

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0349017522 ISBN 13: 9780349017525

Publisher: Virago, 2025

Synopsis

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY BESTSELLING AUTHOR ROSIE THOMAS

By the author of Black Narcissus and The River

'One of our best and most captivating novelists' Philip Hensher

'[Godden has] a genius for storytelling' Evening Standard

Breakfast with the Nikolides was always to be the last hour of her childhood . . .

For Emily Pool, India is a magical place where she has the freedom to escape her mother's suffocating influence. Her days are spent exploring the canals and gardens of East Bengal, and admiringly observing her glamorous, dignified neighbours, the Nikolides. But just as the cracks in Emily's family home are papered over, the Pools strive to maintain an outward impression of respectability, and it is through the Nikolides that Emily is exposed to a world of adult deceit and attrition. And when her beloved dog dies, the event forces a confrontation and reveals to Emily that nothing in the town is quite as it seems . . .

About this title

About the Author

Rumer Godden (1907-1998) was the acclaimed author of over sixty works of fiction and non-fiction for adults and children. Born in England, she and her siblings grew up in Narayanganj, India, and she later spent many years living in Kolkata and Kashmir. Several of her novels were made into films, including Black Narcissus, The Greengage Summer and The River, which was filmed by Jean Renoir. She was appointed OBE in 1993.

From the Back Cover

INTRODUCED BY ROSIE THOMAS

Breakfast with the Nikolides was always to be the last hour of her childhood . . .

For Emily Pool, India is a magical place where she has the freedom to escape her mother's suffocating influence. Her days are spent exploring the canals and gardens of East Bengal and observing her neighbours, the Nikolides. While her parents paper over the cracks in the family home - and in their veneer of respectability - the Nikolides offer a glimpse of glamour and sophistication. Then a tragic crisis plunges Emily into a world of adult deceit, and reveals that nothing in the community is quite as it seems . . .

'She has distilled in simple, luminous prose the experiences of expatriate India, of childhood and its innocence' Lucy Hughes-Hallet

'A heart-wrenchingly truthful evocation of the transition from child to adult, combined with Godden's pitch-perfect descriptions' Guardian

'A genius for storytelling' Evening Standard

Edition details

• Publisher: Virago
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0349017522
• ISBN 13: 9780349017525
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240