Morning Sea

(Paperback)

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Description

A mother's love knows no limits Libya, 2010. As Gaddafi clings desperately to power, and chaos and violence flood the streets of Tripoli, Farid and his mother, Jamila, face two stark choices: flee to the border and risk capture by mercenaries, or trek to the coast and chance their luck on the hazardous crossing to Sicily. But hunkering down in a trafficker's battered old boat, the vastness of the Mediterranean - and their journey - begins to dawn. Sicily, 2010. Vito wanders the desolate beaches recalling his mother's stories of her idyllic childhood in Libya. Forced to leave the country years earlier, Angelina has never forgotten - nor forgiven - the forces that tore her from her childhood love, a young Arab boy whose fate was very different from her own. And as she yearns for her past life in Africa, Jamila dreams of building a future for herself and Farid in Europe. Moving back and forth between the continents, this deeply moving portrait focuses on two families and one stretch of water, and in terse, lyrical language, captures perfectly the dark, uncertain quality of our times.

Reviews

Narrated in sparse and sensuous prose important [and] timely 9/10

* Press Association *

Mazzantinis lyrical novel puts a human face on migration and displacement.

-- Booklist

This intense work of fiction focuses on the human spirit in times of ultimate uncertainty while navigating the rough waters of exile, political turmoil and two families who are struggling to find what is home. By using the sea as a tool to distance people yet bring them together, Mazzantini reveals how the Italian and Libyan states in chaos influence family life and survival.

* World Literature Today *

'Mazzantini explores displacement and the effect of political chaos on individual lives in this extremely brief but intense story of Libyans seeking refuge in Italy and Italians seeking their lost past in Libya ... A tragedy for our time.

* Kirkus Reviews *

Broken destinies, textures, colours and smells a universe of sensations criss-crossed by powerful, often heart-breaking, images.

-- Le Points

One of Mazzantinis best books. A turning point.

-- Il Messaggero

The crystalline beauty of Morning Sea is a peculiar trait of Margaret Mazzantini.

-- Livres Hebdo

As always, Mazzantini finds the words to express the pain and suffering of the defeated, those forgotten at the margins of history.

-- Le Monde des Livre

'A small book about a great catastrophe, a document of our time.'

-- Buchmark

Author Bio

Margaret Mazzantini was born in Dublin and lives in Rome with her husband and four children. She has written seven novels, all international bestsellers, which have won numerous awards and been translated into over 30 languages.