Operation Wandering Soul

(Paperback)

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Description

From the Booker-shortlisted author of The Overstory and Bewilderment 'If you have children or will have children, if you know children or can remember being a child, dare to read Operation Wandering Soul ... it is bedtime reading for the future' USA TODAY In the paediatrics ward of a public hospital, a group of sick children gather, their lives brightened only by the power of imagination. The surrogate parents of this group - Kraft, a tired, overworked surgical resident, and Espera, a dedicated therapist - are charged with prolonging their lives using storytelling and make-believe alone. Using the boundless reach of imagination, Operation Wandering Soul is a novel that celebrates the wonder of childhood. Both social indictment and emotional account of intimate needs, it asks how we might keep alive a little longer the enduring magic of childhood dreams.

Reviews

'If you have children or will have children, if you know children or can remember being a child, dare to read Operation Wandering Soul ... Dense in knowledge, rich in imagination, powerful in expression, [it] is bedtime reading for the future. Like the stories read to children, this intensely caring novel can help prevent the nightmare it describes, children out too late at night, far from home, lost, the wandering souls of the future, our future * USA Today *
Powers' prose soars like the most magnificent of choirs, memorably capturing the moments of joy and anguish, barrenness and grace, that add up to life * Washington Post Book World *
Vast and daring ... A fully realised and major work of art * Chicago Tribune *
To read [Powers'] work is to be wowed by his verbal muscularity and by his ability to stitch seemingly disparate elements into a larger metaphorical fabric -- Meg Wolitzer * New York Times *
Richard Powers is the most intellectually stimulating novelist at work in the English language today * Daily Telegraph *
In his ambition to define and dissect our culture, Powers is an agile younger brother to Don DeLillo and Thomas Pynchon * Newsday *

Author Bio

Richard Powers has published fourteen novels. He is a MacArthur Fellow and received the National Book Award. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Overstory. He lives in the Great Smoky Mountains.