As heard on BBC Radio 4 - the acclaimed new novel from Man Booker Prize-nominated author Andrew O'Hagan.
How much do we keep from the people we love? Why is the truth so often buried in secrets? Can we learn from the past or must we forget it? The Illuminations, Andrew O'Hagan's fifth novel, is a beautiful, deeply charged story about love and memory, about modern war and the complications of fact.
Standing one evening at the window of her house by the sea, Anne Quirk sees a rabbit disappearing in the snow. Nobody remembers her now, but this elderly woman was in her youth a pioneer of British documentary photography. Her beloved grandson, Luke, now a captain with the Royal Western Fusiliers, is on a tour of duty in Afghanistan, part of a convoy taking equipment to the electricity plant at Kajaki. Only when Luke returns home to Scotland does Anne's secret story begin to emerge, along with his, and they set out for an old guest house in Blackpool where she once kept a room.
- ISBN10 0571273645
- ISBN13 9780571273645
- Publish Date 29 January 2015 (first published 27 January 2015)
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 30 October 2023
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Faber & Faber
- Edition Main
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 304
- Language English