Balthazar

Lawrence, Durrell

£9.99

The second volume of ‘The Alexandria Quartet’. In Alexandria in the years before the Second World War, an exiled Irish school teacher seeks to unravel his sexual obsession with two women: the tubercular cafe dancer, Melissa, and Justine, the alluring Jewish wife of a wealthy Coptic Christian.

Available on backorder

Publish Date: 06/05/2021

Description

Lose yourself in the thrilling political intrigue and tangled love affairs of wartime Egypt: Durrell’s epic modern classic, introduced by Alaa Al Aswany (bestselling author of The Yacoubian Building).

Every interpretation of reality is based upon a unique position …

As the threat of world war looms over the city of Alexandria, an exiled Anglo-Irish schoolteacher unravels his erotic obsession with two women: Melissa, a fragile dancer, and Justine, a glamorous married Egyptian woman.

Through conversations with Balthazar, a doctor and mystic, these intricate love affairs are cast in an ominous, sinister new light, as his private fixations become entangled with a mysterious murder plot …

One of the twentieth century’s greatest masterpieces, rich in political and sexual intrigue, Lawrence Durrell’s ‘investigation of modern love’ in the Alexandria Quartet set the world alight. Published in 1958, a year after the sensational Justine, the kaleidoscopic Balthazar burns just as brightly today.

‘Legendary … Casts a spell … A fine storyteller. Reader, watch out!’ Jan Morris, Guardian

‘A brave and brazen work … Lush and grandiose.’ Independent

‘One of the very best novelists of our time … [such] beauty.’ New York Times Book Review

VOLUME TWO OF LAWRENCE DURRELL’S ALEXANDRIA QUARTET

Additional information

Weight 241 g
Dimensions 198 × 129 × 18 mm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Paperback

Pages

224

Language

English

Edition

Reprint

Dewey

823.912 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K