1958. In a dorm room in Moscow, a young writer is woken by the sound of angry voices on the radio. Through the fog of a hangover he hears the news that a novel called Doctor Zhivago has earned its author the Nobel Prize. There is uproar. The author, Boris Pasternak, faces exile, the press hound him and demand that he refuse the award. A few days earlier the young writer found a copy of this book - could those simple pages really be so dangerous?
Young Ismail's world centres around his mother.Naive and fragile as a paper doll, she is an unlikely presence in her husband's imposing house, with its hidden rooms and infamous dungeon. Yet despite her youthful nature, she is not without her own enigmas. Most of all, she fears that her intellectual, radical son will exchange her for a superior mother when he becomes a famous writer.From the winner of the first ever Man Booker International Prize, this is a disarming story of home and creative ambition, of personal and political freedom. Rooted in the author's own childhood in Albania, it is dedicated to the memory of his mother.
