A new edition of the best-selling, award-winning first book.
When the Beltrán brothers came to this Andean valley, they found behind barred windows beautiful twin sisters – last in the line of an illustrious conquistador. Through them the Beltrán dynasty was born – a dynasty that ruled the valley for 200 years and was now returning to the dust.
Two centuries later, Lydia Sinclair was scarcely out of school when she fell in love with Don Diego Beltrán and left England behind for her husband’s Andean estate. Benito, the family’s oldest retainer, said that through her the valley would not be forgotten: 'Fate has brought you here to us, to chronicle our decline.'
In the night’s stillness he told her of romance and battle, drought and pestilence, splendour and suffering.
The characters in the valley's tumultuous history rose up before Lydia as if they still roamed the dusty slopes: Admiral Silence who enjoyed no one's company so decided never to speak again; General Mario who prophesied the ruin of their valley as he decayed from leprosy behind a mask; María Candelaria whose beauty and wildness caused the massacre of nearly half of the Beltráns; La Comadre Matilide, the peasant woman of striking ugliness whom people bribed to stay in their houses because her departure left a sense of ill omen; the aged sisters who sat amidst hoards of china and gambled at cards for their every move. Finally there was Cristóbal Beltrán, who sifted the sand in the hourglass, ageless and all-knowing and indestructable.
Out of the upheaval and decay come a narrative and language astonishing in their fertility. This new edition accompanies the publication of Lisa’s new memoir, Better Broken Than New.
Lisa St Aubin de Terán is the prize-winning Anglo-Guyanese London-born author of 20 books, including novels, short stories and nonfiction. Much of her writing draws on her varied life experiences. And time warps, rural communities, isolation and grace under pressure are still the dominant themes in both her life and work.
"A genuine and haunting and unforgettable work of art. It is this novel's triumph to be consistently exhilarating, never less than a pleasure to read." - Standard
"Has something of Márquez's power of depicting in microcosm the cruelties and catastrophes, the endemic corruption, and the feudal relationship with death and the supernatural that characterises South American life." -- New Statesman
"Richly evocative and cunningly crafted." - Observer
"This is an account - particularly gripping because of the quality of the writing and the esoteric setting - of a strong-willed young woman's education by experience." -- Times Literary Supplement
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