Publication Date: 06/02/2020 ISBN: 9781786898616 Category:

Sunset Song

Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Nicola Sturgeon

Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd
Publication Date: 06/02/2020 ISBN: 9781786898616 Category:
Hardback

£12.99

Quantity:

Description

Faced with a choice between a harsh farming life and the world of books and learning, Chris Guthrie chooses to remain in her rural community, bound by her intense love of the land. But everything changes with the arrival of the First World War and Chris finds her land altered beyond recognition.

In lyrical prose, Sunset Song evokes village life in the early twentieth century and offers a powerful portrait of a land and people in turmoil.

This stunning new edition of one of the most cherished Scottish novels of the twentieth century includes a specially commissioned introduction by Nicola Sturgeon, in which she writes with heartfelt passion of her love for what she regards as ‘one of the finest literary accomplishments Scotland has ever known . . . In no small way, I owe my love of literature to Sunset Song’.

Publisher Review

An evocative look at female life on the Scottish frontier . . . Sunset Song is the story of a resilient young woman during the early 20th century. Her profound identification with the land is her source of renewal and strength as she endures harrowing family circumstances and, eventually, the devastating fallout of the First World War * * Los Angeles Times * * His three great novels have the impetus and music of mountain burns in full spate * * Observer * * An inescapable landmark of Scottish literature . . . Few novels have ever achieved such an unaffectedly sublime blend of poetry and music, and it is clear from the outset that the title is anything but a conceit. The prose is increasingly symphonic, in its sweep and surge, but the final effect is more like what bagpipers call ceol mor, "big music". It is full of haunting echoes of traditional Scottish balladry * * Times Literary Supplement * * When I read Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Sunset Song in my mid-teens I entered into it with such wholehearted love that I longed to live inside it . . . The rhythms of the prose are incantatory, musical . . . Chris is the centre of the novel and its genius, vivid on every page where she's present -- TESSA HADLEY * * Guardian * * It is gritty and passionate and one of Scotland's great 20th-century novels * * Daily Express * * Chris Guthrie is the most passionate and appealing heroine in Scottish literature; Grassic Gibbon's magnificent novel is fresh, powerful and timeless -- ANNE DONOVAN An unforgettable evocation of a way of life that has slipped away . . . It is a love song for a landscape and language still familiar - and precious - to a generation born long after [Grassic-Gibbon] died . . . Chris is one of the great women of 20th-century fiction * * Guardian * * Portrayed with a lyrical intensity that echoes through the years and still resonates today * * New York Times * * If this new edition is prompting you to re-read Sunset Song after many years, as I have just done, you will find it has lost none of its appeal and emotion. And if you are about to read this remarkable novel for the first time, you are embarking on a profound journey -- NICOLA STURGEON Sunset Song's great gripping hybrid of melodrama and realism . . . left me scorched -- ALI SMITH

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