Ignorance

Description

LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2013 Jeanne and Marie-Angele grow up, side by side yet apart, in the Catholic village of Ste Madeleine. Marie-Angele is the daughter of the grocer, inflated with ideas of her rightful place in society; Jeanne's mother washes clothes for a living and used to be a Jew. When war arrives, the village must play its part in a game for which no one knows the rules - not the dubious hero who embroils Marie-Angele in the black market, nor the artist living alone with his red canvases. In these uncertain times, the enemy may be hiding in your garden shed and the truth can be buried under a pyramid of recriminations. A mesmerising exploration of guilt, faith, desire and judgement, Ignorance brings to life a people at war.

Michele Roberts is the author of twelve highly acclaimed novels, including The Looking Glass and Daughters of the House, which won the WHSmith Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and, most recently, the highly-acclaimed Ignorance, which was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2013. Her memoir Paper Houses was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. She has also published poetry and short stories, most recently collected in Mud: Stories of Sex and Love. Half-English and half-French, Michele Roberts lives in London and in the Mayenne, France. She is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres.

A gripping story of fear, arrests and personal tragedy * Independent * Moving and involving. Only the most hard-hearted reader will resist its spider web of injustices * The Times * Powerful and lyrical ... Her deceptively simple narrative provides a devastating critique of religious hypocrisy and bourgeois morality, couched in gloriously pointillist prose * Michael Arditti, Daily Mail * A magnificent writer * Helen Dunmore, Guardian * Roberts' description of heartache, loss and guilt is breathtaking. Simply brilliant * Irish Examiner * Brilliantly poetic * Independent *