Sophie's Choice: The National Book Award-winning Second World War classic - Softcover

Styron, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099470446 ISBN 13: 9780099470441

Publisher: Vintage Classics, 2004

Synopsis

In post-war Brooklyn, three lives are drawn together by love, guilt and an unbearable secret.

In the summer of 1947, Stingo, an inexperienced twenty-two-year-old Southerner, arrives at a boarding house in a leafy Brooklyn suburb.

There he meets Nathan, a fiery Jewish intellectual, and Sophie, a beautiful and fragile Polish Catholic. Drawn into the centre of their passionate and destructive relationship, Stingo becomes witness, confidant and supplicant as love, jealousy and emotional volatility gather around them.

At the heart of the novel lies Sophie’s past: pre-war Poland, the concentration camp and the choice that has shaped the rest of her life.

National Book Award-winning Sophie’s Choice is a modern literary classic about survivor’s guilt, memory, desire, betrayal and moral consequence. Moving between post-war Brooklyn and the devastation of Europe, William Styron’s novel is compassionate, controversial and profoundly searching.

A classic Second World War novel and a work of historical literary fiction, it asks how love, guilt and survival can shape a life after catastrophe.

About this title

About the Author

Born in Newport News, Virginia, in 1925, William Styron was educated at Duke University. He served in the Marine Corps during the last war, and was recalled to service during the Korean War. After 1952, he lived mainly in Europe, before settling in a rural part of Connecticut. He died in 2006.

From the Back Cover

In this extraordinary novel, Stingo, an inexperienced twenty-two year old Southerner, takes us back to the summer of 1947 and a boarding house in a leafy Brooklyn suburb. Ultimately, he arrives at the dark core of Sophie's past: her memories of pre-war Poland, the concentration camp and - the essence of her terrible secret - her choice.

From the Inside Flap

In this extraordinary novel, Stingo, an inexperienced twenty-two year old Southerner, takes us back to the summer of 1947 and a boarding house in a leafy Brooklyn suburb. There, he meets Nathan, a fiery Jewish intellectual; and Sophie, a beautiful and fragile Polish Catholic. Stingo is drawn into the heart of their passionate and destructive relationship as witness, confidant and supplicant. Ultimately, he arrives at the dark core of Sophie's past: her memories of pre-war Poland, the concentration camp and - the essence of her terrible secret - her choice.

Edition details

• Publisher: Vintage Classics
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0099470446
• ISBN 13: 9780099470441
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 656