A Separate Peace: As heard on BBC Radio 4

(Paperback, Reissue)

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Description

An American coming-of-age tale during a period when the entire country was losing its innocence to the second world war

Set at a boys' boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas is a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete.

What happens between the two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world.

Reviews

'A novel that made such a deep impression on me at sixteen that I can still conjure the atmosphere in my fifties: of yearning, infatuation mingled indistinguishably with envy, and remorse'

-- Lionel Shriver

Author Bio

John Knowles (19262001)was a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and Yale University, as well as a recipient of the William Faulkner Award and the Rosenthal Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. His books includeSeparate Peace,Peace Breaks Out, andThe Paragon.