Undying: A Love Story

Description

How can you say goodbye to the love of your life? In Undying Michel Faber honours the memory of his wife, who died after a six-year battle with cancer. Bright, tragic and candid, these poems are an exceptional chronicle of what it means to find the love of your life. And what it is like to have to say goodbye. All I can do, in what remains of my brief time,/is mention, to whoever cares to listen,/that a woman once existed, who was kind/and beautiful and brave, and I will not forget/how the world was altered, beyond recognition,/when we met.

Michel Faber has written nine other books. In addition to the Whitbread-shortlisted Under the Skin, he is the author of the highly acclaimed The Crimson Petal and the White, and most recently The Book of Strange New Things, which was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award and won the Saltire Book of the Year Award 2015. Born in Holland, brought up in Australia, he now lives in the UK. This is his first poetry collection.

Beautiful and deeply moving . . . a story of courage and the persistence of hope even in the darkest times -- Allan Massie * * Scotsman * * The darkest elegies can soar to the stars, transforming grief into luminous beauty . . . tender, devastating . . . This is the most moving book I've read this year, as full of courage as grace -- Bel Mooney * * Daily Mail, Poetry of the Year * * Reflecting on life and love and death . . . this is a very powerful collection . . . incredibly rich -- Cathy Rentzenbrink * * Monocle * * Michel Faber addressed these love poems to his wife after her death. They are lucid, tender and wise, and they pulse with this fine writer's intelligence -- Ian McEwan A thing of tender, painful beauty * * Stylist * * I was touched by the spirit of these poems, their vulnerably sober and steady way of addressing grief -- Christopher Reid Heart-breaking, tender, intimate, harrowing . . . this is a stunning testimony to love -- Mary Costello Searing yet beautiful -- Richard Holloway A painful little treasure -- Christopher Brookmyre