Homeland
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2.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Miren and Bittori have been best friends all their lives, growing up in the same small town in the north of Spain. With limited interest in politics, the terrorist threat posed by ETA seems to affect them little. When Bittori’s husband starts receiving threatening letters from the violent group, however – demanding money, accusing him of being a police informant – she turns to her friend for help. But Miren’s loyalties are torn: her son Joxe Mari has just been recruited to the group as a terrorist and to denounce them as evil would be to condemn her own flesh and blood. Tensions rise, relationships fracture, and events race towards a violent, tragic conclusion . . .
Fernando Aramburu’s Homeland is a gripping story and devastating exploration of the meaning of family, friendship, what it’s like to live in the shadow of terrorism, and how countries and their people can possibly come to terms with their violent pasts.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With a single broadcast in 2011, the ETA Basque separatist group abandoned its campaign for an independent Basque homeland, ending more than 50 years of armed conflict with the Spanish government. Its legacy wounded families and broken communities is the heart of Aramburu's magnificent novel, his first to be translated into English. The ceasefire allows Bittori, an elderly widow whose husband was assassinated by an ETA gunman, to return to her provincial village, setting off a reckoning with her childhood best friend Miren, a fervent nationalist who distanced herself from Bittori after her eldest son joined the ETA. Bittori is welcomed back by Miren's daughter, Aranxta, who sets out to find them a measure of peace. Aramburu spends decades with the families as the conflict contorts their lives. The cast is sprawling with both matriarchs, husbands, five children, spouses, grandchildren but each's story is realized masterfully, as the characters look to escape violence however they can, be it exile, alcohol, or love. Aramburu's remarkable novel is an honest and empathetic portrait of suffering and forgiveness, home and family.
