The Memory Man

Description

Bruno Lind is on a mission, though he may not know it. Irene Davies knows she is, but isn't sure it's the right one. Both are haunted by the legacy of a tangled history of love and war. When Bruno returns to Vienna, the city of his birth, after an absence of many years, more awaits him than his memory hinted. Yet Lind is an expert on memory, a neuroscientist of international renown. His own story, dredged from the past, shouldn't elude his explanatory capacities. In this poignant novel, studded with vivid characters and rare humour, Appignanesi returns to the terrain of her acclaimed family memoir, "Losing the Dead." Drawing on her intimate knowledge of central Europe, she has created a compelling fiction that is also an exploration of mind and memory.

Reviews

'It speaks history and one cannot stop listening' - John Berger'Adroit and elegant. Read with horror and fascination' - Edmund White'Stunning' - Helena Kennedy QC, Books of the Year, Guardian'Impressive' - Sunday Times'Authentic. It's not the geography which haunts the story, but a search for missing daughters and fathers ... skilfully transmits connections between individual and collective memory' - Independent'Intriguing, entertaining, compelling ... an ingeniously conceived plot' - Jewish Chronicle

Author description

Lisa Appignanesi was born in Poland, grew up in Paris and Montreal before moving to Britain. A university lecturer, she was a founder member of Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative and then deputy director of London's Institute of Contemporary Arts. She is currently deputy president of English PEN and also a member of PEN's Writers in Prison Committee. She is also a noted broadcaster, critic and cultural commentator. Her translation (together with John Berger) of Nella Bielski's The Year is 42 was awarded the 2005 Scott Moncrieff Prize for Translation and her novel The Memory Man won the 2005 Holocaust Literature Award and was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. Lisa Appignanesi lives in London and has two children.