A Far Country
From AwardAnnals
| Book: | A Far Country |
|---|---|
| Author: | Daniel Mason |
| Honors: | |
| Genres: | |
| Publisher: | Alfred A. Knopf |
Raised in a remote village on the edge of a sugarcane plantation, fourteen-year-old Isabel was born with the gift and curse of “seeing farther.” When drought and war grip the backlands, her brother Isaias joins a great exodus to a teeming city in the south. Soon Isabel must follow, forsaking the only home she’s ever known, her sole consolation the thought of being with her brother again. But when she arrives, she discovers that Isaias has disappeared. Weeks and then months pass, until one day, armed only with her unshakable hope, she descends into the chaos of the city to find him.
Told with astonishing empathy, and strikingly visual, the story of Isabel’s quest—her dignity and determination, her deeply spiritual world—is a universal tale about the bonds of family and a sister’s love for her brother, about journeys and longing, survival and true heroism.
A tour de force of great emotional and narrative power.
| Find it: |
|---|
Reviews
Barnes and Noble
The second novel by Daniel Mason (The Piano Tuner) takes us to an unnamed South American country. In a small rural village, 14-year-old Isabel and her family are striving frantically to stave off starvation. Finally, in an act of desperation, they send Isabel to live with their city cousins, where they assume that she will be reunited with her brother Isaias. But when she arrives in the almost equally impoverished city, Isabel learns that her beloved older brother has disappeared. Obsessed with finding him, this deeply intuitive, perhaps even psychic young girl begins her search in a new, inhospitable home.
