The Lone Woman - Softcover

Atxaga, Bernardo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 186046422X ISBN 13: 9781860464225

Publisher: Harvill Press, 1999

Synopsis

Irene is 37 years old and just out of prison after serving time for terrorist activities. Deciding to return home to Bilbao, she takes a bus journey across Spain, striking up conversations with the passengers who include two plainclothes policemen. As the journey progresses, so the tension builds.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

After four years in a Barcelona jail, the woman was free to go home, back to the Basque country, to Bilbao. But she had nothing to go back to - her lover was dead, her husband divorced, her family had disowned her, she had no children. Back to nursing? She was burnt out. Back to her comrades in the Organization? No, they thought she had betrayed them. All that she carried with her was a suitcase with a few treasured books, a pack or two of smokes, and memories. But no plans: the horizon was empty, featureless. On the coach carrying her back to Bilbao she kept herself to herself, with only a few words to the large lady in the next seat, a couple of nuns, and two men, a smooth talker in a red tie and a tough who showed a little too much interest in her. It was as though she had no need to hide from them that she was fresh out of prison, an amnestied terrorist, her reputation compromised.

The lone woman, like the protagonist of Bernardo Atxaga's previous novel The Lone Man, is tracked, on the run; but clearly she lives under a quite different star. In the subtle, complex emotions that haunt her she gives the reader a deep insight into the prevailing anxieties of our day.

About the Author:

Bernardo Atxaga, a Basque, was born in 1951. He published his first work at the age of twenty in an anthology of Basque writers. He has written plays, children's books, radio scripts and novels, including Obabakoak, which has been published in fourteen languages including English, and won several prizes. His last novel, The Lone Man, was described by Peter Millar in The Times as "a spellbinding, sympathetic odyssey into the mind of a former terrorist".

Margaret Jull Costa translated Obabakoak and The Lone Man. She is also translator of works by Javier Marías (including A Heart so White which won the Dublin International Impac Award), Carmen Martín Gaite and Arturo Pérez-Reverte. Her translation of Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet made her joint-winner of the Portuguese translation prize.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvill Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 186046422X
• ISBN 13: 9781860464225
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 120