The Memory of Love - Hardcover

Forna, Aminatta

3.93

4,952 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1408808137 ISBN 13: 9781408808139

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2010

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Adrian Lockheart is a psychologist escaping his life in England. Arriving in Freetown in the wake of civil war, he struggles with the intensity of the heat, dirt and dust, and with the secrets this country hides. Despite the gulf of experience and understanding between them, Adrian finds unexpected friendship in a young surgeon at the hospital, the charismatic Kai Mansaray, and begins to build a new life just as Kai makes plans to leave. In the hospital Adrian encounters an elderly and unwell man, Elias Cole, who is reflecting on his past, not all of it noble. Recorded in a series of notebooks are memories of his youth, the optimism of the first moon landings, and the details of an obsession: Saffia, a woman he loved, and Julius, her fiery, rebellious husband. As their individual stories entwine across two generations in a country torn apart by repression and war, some distances cannot be bridged. "The Memory of Love" is a towering tale of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, superbly realised and beautifully written, horrifying and exhilarating, unflinching and tender, moving and uplifting. It is the story of four lives colliding; a story about friendship, about understanding, absolution and the indelible effects of the past; about journeys and dreams and loss, and about the very nature of love.

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Review:

'Delivering us to a common center, no matter where we happen to be have been born, Aminatta Forna tackles those great human experiences of love and war, of friendship, rivalry, of death and triumphant survival. Often darkly funny, written with gritty realism and tenderness, The Memory of Love is a profoundly affecting work' --Kiran Desai

`A subtle and complex exploration of both the psyche of a war-torn African state and the attractions which it holds for an outsider. Forna is a writer of great talent and courage, one who never shies away from asking the difficult question'
--Monica Ali

...affecting, passionate and intelligent novel about the redemptive power of love and storytelling... --Daily Telegraph, March 27, 2010

Let us hope that it takes its place where it deserves to be... at the top of award shortlists. --Times, March 20, 2010

...to read The Memory of Love is to experience, not simply learn about, the inner existences of its characters... --Times Literary Supplement, April 30, 2010

Aminatta Forna's novel is intelligent, engrossing and beautifully crafted --Daily Mail, April 2, 2010

This is not a book to be read lightly, but one to savour and share. --Stylist, April 7, 2010

`ambitious and absorbing... successfully evokes the suffering of the nation as a whole, and boldly explores man's capacity for love, destruction and betrayal'
--Anthony Gardner, Mail on Sunday

Book Description:

Shortlisted for the Orange Prize 2011

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