Homeland
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- €7.99
Publisher Description
The international bestseller, longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award 2021. Fernando Aramburu's Homeland is an epic and heartbreaking story of two best friends whose families are divided by the conflicting loyalties of terrorism.
‘It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book that was so persuasive and moving’ – Mario Vargas Llosa, author of Time of the Hero.
The Basque Country, Spain, 2011.
Miren and Bittori have lived side by side in a small Basque town all their lives. Their husbands play cards together, their children play and eventually go out drinking together. The terrorist threat posed by ETA seems to affect them little.
When Bittori’s husband starts receiving threatening letters – demanding money, accusing him of being a police informant – she turns to her friend for help. But Miren’s loyalties are torn: her son has just been recruited as a terrorist and to denounce them would be to condemn her own flesh and blood. Tensions rise, relationships fracture, and events move towards a tragic conclusion . . .
‘Is Aramburu the Tolstoy of the Basque country, author of a Spanish language War and Peace?’ – Guardian
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.
