PHILIP HENSHER

Lejos del ajetreo, la inseguridad y la contaminación de Londres, los acomodados habitantes de Hanmouth −un pintoresco pueblo en el estuario del río Hain, en el canal de Bristol− viven orgullosos en u

The things history will do at the bidding of loveOn a warm Sunday afternoon, Nazia and Sharif are preparing for a family barbecue. They are in the house in Sheffield that will do for the rest of their lives. In the garden next door is a retired doctor, whose four children have long since left home. When the shadow of death passes over Nazia and Sharif's party, Doctor Spinster's actions are going to bring the two families together, for decades to come.The Friendly Ones is about two families. In it, people with very different histories can fit together, and redeem each other. One is a large and loosely connected family who have come to England from the subcontinent in fits and starts, brought to England by education, and economic possibilities. Or driven away from their native country by war, murder, crime and brutal oppression - things their new neighbours know nothing about. At the heart of their story is betrayal and public shame. The secret wound that overshadows the Spinsters, their neighbours next door, is of a different kind: Leo, the eldest son, running away from Oxford University aged eighteen. How do you put these things right, in England, now?Spanning decades and with a big and beautifully drawn cast of characters all making their different ways towards lives that make sense, The Friendly Ones, Philip Hensher's moving and timely new novel, shows what a nation is made of; how the legacies of our history can be mastered by the decision to know something about people who are not like us.

The startling new novel from the author of King of the Badgers and the Man Booker-shortlisted The Northern Clemency. "I was a baby during the war. We stayed inside for months. All my aunts took turns in feeding me. I couldn't be heard to cry. You see, there were soldiers in the streets. They would have known what a crying baby meant. So I had to be kept silent. No, not everyone came out of the war alive." One family's life, and a nation - Bangladesh - are uniquely created through conversation, sacrifice, songs, bonds, blood, bravery and jokes. Narrated by a young boy born into a savage civil war, 'Scenes from Early Life' is a heartbreaking, funny and gripping novel by one of our finest writers.

Richard Hannay, South African mining engineer and war hero, undertakes a perilous mission to pursue the elusive "Greenmantle". His success or failure could change the outcome of Wor

Hilarious, exuberant, subtle, tender, brutal, spectacular, and above all unexpected: these two extraordinary volumes contain the limitless possibilities of the British short story. This is the first anthology capacious enough to celebrate the full diversity and energy of its writers, subjects and tones. The most famous authors are here, and many others, including some magnificent stories never republished since their first appearance in magazines and periodicals. The Penguin Book of the British Short Story has a permanent authority, and will be reached for year in and year out. This volume takes the story from its origins with Defoe, Swift and Fielding to the 'golden age' of the fin de siecle and Edwardian period. Edited and with an introduction by Philip Hensher, the award-winning novelist, critic and journalist.

Hilarious, exuberant, subtle, tender, brutal, spectacular, and above all unexpected: these two extraordinary volumes contain the limitless possibilities of the British short story. This is the first anthology capacious enough to celebrate the full diversity and energy of its writers, subjects and tones. The most famous authors are here, and many others, including some magnificent stories never republished since their first appearance in magazines and periodicals. The Penguin Book of the British Short Story has a permanent authority, and will be reached for year in and year out. This volume takes the story from the 1920s to the present day. Edited and with an introduction by Philip Hensher, the award-winning novelist, critic and journalist.

Backdrops vary in this collection of stories from the author of The Northern Clemency from turmoil in Sudan following the death of a politician in a plane crash, to southern India where a Soho hedonist starts to envisage the crump and soar of munitions. Each story, regardless of location, reveals a great writer at the peak of his powers.

'It's the book you should give someone who thinks they don't like novels … Here is surely a future prizewinner that is easy to read and impossible to forget' Melissa Katsoulis, The Times The things history will do at the bidding of love On a warm Sunday afternoon, Nazia and Sharif are preparing for a family barbecue. They are in the house in Sheffield that will do for the rest of their lives. In the garden next door is a retired doctor, whose four children have long since left home. When the shadow of death passes over Nazia and Sharif's party, Doctor Spinster's actions are going to bring the two families together, for decades to come. The Friendly Ones is about two families. In it, people with very different histories can fit together, and redeem each other. One is a large and loosely connected family who have come to England from the subcontinent in fits and starts, brought to England by education, and economic possibilities. Or driven away from their native country by war, murder, crime and brutal oppression - things their new neighbours know nothing about. At the heart of their story is betrayal and public shame. The secret wound that overshadows the Spinsters, their neighbours next door, is of a different kind: Leo, the eldest son, running away from Oxford University aged eighteen. How do you put these things right, in England, now? Spanning decades and with a big and beautifully drawn cast of characters all making their different ways towards lives that make sense, The Friendly Ones, Philip Hensher's moving and timely new novel, shows what a nation is made of; how the legacies of our history can be mastered by the decision to know something about people who are not like us.

Excellent, entertaining and ingenious ... from Oscar Wilde to Arthur Conan Doyle, this fine anthology celebrates one of the richest moments in Britain's literary history' Sunday TimesThe quarter century between 1890 and the outbreak of the First World War saw an extraordinary boom in the popularity and quality of short stories in Britain, fuelled by a large, eager new magazine readership. The great writers of the age produced some of their finest work, and literary genres - the ghost story, science fiction - took shape. This richly varied, endlessly entertaining anthology brings together authors from Katherine Mansfield to Rudyard Kipling, James Joyce to Saki, H. G. Wells to Rebecca West. It celebrates a teeming, innovative world of literary achievement.

The most ambitious and daring novel novel yet from Booker Prize-shortlisted Philip Hensher. 'A novel that's almost fizzy to the touch ...A performance of extraordinary flair and majesty from a writer who seems capable of anything' Guardian 'The Emperor Waltz' is a single novel with three narrative strands: fourth-century Rome, 1920s Germany, and 1980s London. In each place, a small coterie is closely connected and separated from the larger world. In each story, the larger world regards the small coterie and its passionately-held beliefs and secrets with suspicion and hostility. It is the story of eccentricity, its struggle, its triumph, its influence - but also its defeat.

A bold anthology ...alive with provocations and insights' John Carey, Sunday Times 'The Boy-scouts mistook my signal, and have killed the postman. I've had very little practice in this sort of thing, you see' The British short story tradition is probably the richest, most varied and historically extensive in the world. This new anthology celebrates the full diversity and energy of its writers, subjects and tones, from the story's origins with Defoe, Swift and Fielding, to the 'golden age' of the fin de siecle and Edwardian period, ending with the First World War. Including the most famous authors as well as some magnificent, little-known stories never republished since their first appearance in magazines and periodicals, these stories are by turns topical and playful, ghostly and theatrical, rumbustious and sublime. Edited with an introduction by Philip Hensher

Eclectic, entertaining ...almost all British, if not human, life is here' Boyd Tonkin, Independent 'Mind-stretching, heart-breaking, beautifully-crafted fiction' Claire Harman, Evening Standard 'She would tear the house down - shatter the windows, slash the furniture, flood the baths, fire the curtains!' Hilarious, exuberant, surreal, subtle, tender, brutal, spectacular and above all unexpected: this extraordinary selection celebrates the British short story from the 1920s to the present day. From Angela Carter to V. S. Pritchett, Elizabeth Taylor to J. G. Ballard, Ali Smith to a host of little-known works from magazines and periodicals, and including tales of air-raids, phone sex, snobbery, modern-day slavery, grief, desire, the familiar and the strange, here is the short story in all its limitless possibilities. Edited and with an introduction by Philip Hensher, the award-winning novelist, critic and journalist.

El imperio de las zarzas es un amplísimo viaje por diersos puntos del planeta en un momento preciso. Para exponer las circunstancias que concurrieron en el desastre al que se vio abocado el imponente ejército inglés en su primer intento de toma de Afganistán (1839), Hensher traslada al lector a los escenarios de las tomas de decisiones de la época (San Petersbrugo, Kabul...) para ofrecer de este modo un completo mosaico de un momento crucial de las relaciones entre Oriente y Occidente. Todo eso sin impedir el paso a una magnífica historia con aventuras y pasiones.La crítica extranjera ha acogido muy bien esta novela.

La publicación de esta novela causó una auténtica conmoción en el mundo literario británico, que lo último que esperaba de Hensher tras El imperio de las zarzas era una novela tan impregnada de humor fresco y disparatado. Hensher nos presenta a John Carrington, un joven dedicado a la elaboracion de indices onomasticos que ve, a un tiempo, como su esposa le abandona y como es victima de un persistente ataque de hipo que da lugar a las mas disparatadas situaciones (sobre todo cuando pone en practica alguna de las tecnicas que supuestamente deberian resolver el problema). A traves del relato vamos conociendo a tan singular personaje que, en esencia, es un hombre que vive en su mundo, para el que se ha creado una logica que choca con la del mundo real. El indice tematico que acompaña la novela es una ultima vuelta de tuerca en el disparatado mundo de John. Bajo la farsa y el disparate se oculta una poderosa e inquietante reflexion sobre la libertad individual, al tiempo que una serie de agudas opiniones sobre la vida en sociedad, en familia, y particularmente, acerca de la vida en pareja. Una novela tremendamente divertida.

El rey de los tejones, de Philip Hensher, autor de otras obras de la narativa extranjera como El imperio de las zarzas, es una novela coral, cuyos personajes esconden más de un secreto, que examina el concepto contemporaneo de privacidad y retrata con extraordinaria incision la sociedad britanica actual. Philip Hensher fue seleccionado por la revista Granta como uno de los mejores jovenes novelistas britanicos. Ha escrito un libro de relatos y siete novelas.Lejos de la inseguridad y la contaminacion de Londres, los acomodados habitantes de Hanmouthun pueblo en la desembocadura del rio Hain en el canal de Bristol viven orgullosos y muy hipotecados en unos pintorescos cottages en el centro del pueblo, rodeados de tiendas de antiguedades y de quesos gourmet y de espaldas a los habitantes menos favorecidos de las afueras. Cuando una niña de ocho años es secuestrada, los ojos de toda Inglaterra se vuelven hacia el idilico Hanmouth, que es el centro de todo tipo de especulaciones.Un libro delicioso, rico en pathos y drama, lleno de vida. Edmund Gordon (The Times Literary Supplement)Hensher es uno de los pocos novelistas ingleses que a) esta seriamente interesado en la diversidad de la sociedad inglesa moderna, y b) tiene los recursos intelectuales para poder encararla. D. J. Taylor (The Independent on Sunday)