The House of Silence - Hardcover

Busquets, Blanca

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1682450309 ISBN 13: 9781682450307

Publisher: Regan Arts, 2016

Synopsis

In the tradition of Elena Ferrante--a breathtaking European novel of love, loss, and the mysterious connection between four people, a valuable violin, and their passion for music.

Moving between Barcelona and Berlin in the 1980s, this is a profoundly moving story of loneliness and connection, music and desire, from an award-winning Spanish novelist, translated into English for the first time.

A three-hundred-year-old Stainer violin lost and found connects a charismatic conductor who emigrated to Barcelona from behind the Iron Curtain, his two star violinists, and his Spanish maid. Love triangles, the pursuit of the precious violin, and the need for beautiful music shoot through The House of Silence.

The love of music the characters share is tempered by ambition, envy, and greed, which crescendo on the evening of a memorial concert in Berlin, when the presence of an elderly lady in the audience makes some members of the orchestra very nervous. Who is the rightful owner of this exquisite violin? And, as secrets come to light, how far will people go to seek revenge?

Praise for House of Silence

"An exceptional work by Blanca Busquets, one of our country's most prominent writers." --La Casa de los Libros

"A signora of Catalan literature, a heiress of the great Mercè Rodoreda." --Glamour Magazine Italia

About this title

Review

"With one violin, Blanca Busquets has written the score for four lives in her transfixing novel The House of Silence. What a magnificent gift to have the one of the leading writers in Catalan literature finally available for English readers."

--Idra Novey, author of Ways to Disappear

"With a fast pace and plenty of plot twists, Busquet's ode to music is an entertaining performance surveying envy, love, and revenge."

--Publisher's Weekly

"[A] tightly woven mystery, leading the reader through a maze of intrigue, loss, and romance with clear, brisk prose . . . Busquets' novel is bound to please readers with its new take on Old World charm--and the secrets we keep even from ourselves."

--Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Blanca Busquets is a Catalan writer and a radio journalist. She began writing at the age of twelve and has published seven novels, translated to Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Polish, Norwegian, and French. Her fifth novel, La Nevada Del Cucut, was the winner of the 2011 Catalan Booksellers' Prize. She lives in Barcelona, Spain.

Mara Faye Lethem has translated novels by Jaume Cabré, David Trueba, Albert Sánchez Piñol, Javier Calvo, Patricio Pron, Marc Pastor and Toni Sala, among others. These books have been featured as New York Times and Booklist Editors' Picks, and among the Best Books of the Year in The Times and Readers' Favourite Books in the Financial Times. Her translation of The Whispering City, by Sara Moliner, recently received an English PEN Award.

About this edition

• Publisher: Regan Arts
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1682450309
• ISBN 13: 9781682450307
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 249