Year of the Drought - Softcover

Roland Buti

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1910400769 ISBN 13: 9781910400760

Publisher: Old Street Publishing, 2018

Synopsis

WINNER SWISS LITERATURE PRIZE WINNER PRIX DU PUBLIC DE LA R.T.S. WINNER Prix des Lectrices Edelweiss SHORTLISTED PRIX MÉDICIS
It was the month of June, in the year 1976. I was thirteen. It was the start of the summer holidays. It was the year of the drought.
The Sutters have been farming on the Swiss plateau for generations, but now the household teeters on the brink of ruin. The crops are audibly roasting; the cooling systems of the new hen-house are breaking down; even the family sheepdog, Sheriff, has taken to fainting in the unheard-of temperatures.
When the glamorous, metropolitan Cécile comes to stay at the farm, she quickly becomes a focus for dreams that have long been suppressed -- of freedom, art and sex. Meanwhile, 13-year-old Gus, with only his injured dove for company, observes helplessly as his family and his carefree childhood dissolve in the heat.
A tender, funny, elegiac novel about a lost, rural way of life, Year of the Drought is a perfect companion to Robert Seethaler's A Whole Life. Taking place over one apocalyptic summer, it evokes several worlds -- of childhood, of traditional farming, of patriarchy -- at the very moment of their destruction.

About this title

Review

'Imagine a rural version of A Streetcar Named Desire... expertly ratchets up the tension before delivering a finale that is both a literal and metaphorical cloudburst -- explosive, cathartic and surprisingly moving.'
SCOTSMAN

'Here is a literary sorbet for a hot summer... beautifully observed... Little by little, what seemed a gentle coming-of-age story overturns the reader's expectations until it arrives at an apocalyptic conclusion.'
GUARDIAN

'One of the most unexpected pleasures of my reading year'
Claire Armitstead

'This is great literature . . . a book that concerns a vast public'
Jury, SWISS LITERATURE PRIZE

'A stunning evocation of an epochal change in rural life, affecting in equal measure animals, people, plants, the soil, and even the air itself..'
DIE ZEIT

'Having won multiple awards in Switzerland, this powerful coming-of-age novel about a boy watching his family implode now appears in an eloquent and poetic English translation.'
GLASGOW HERALD

'weaves a touching coming-of-age tale into an elegy for a dying rural life... terrific'
BIG ISSUE

'A great novel.... masterfully evokes not the end of the world, but the end of a world ... a beautiful and very moving book'
LE NOUVEL OBSERVATEUR

'Funny and poetic, this is a novel to savour.'
PSYCHOLOGIES MAGAZINE --...

Edition details

• Publisher: Old Street Publishing
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1910400769
• ISBN 13: 9781910400760
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160