A Constellation of Vital Phenomena (Thorndike Press Large Print Reviewer's Choice) - Tapa blanda

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
#1 Indie Next List Pick
A Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Pick
An O, The Oprah Magazine Debut Novel to Pick Up Now
"Anthony Marra's fine debut novel reaches tenderly, unflinchingly into the centre of Chechen conflict of the late 1990s. This tale has its roots in shocking brutality, and its beauty in the human redemption that can come from unaccountable human kindness. Whimsies of circumstance, fate, and the ties of family and faith serve to guide the reader and the characters through a richly layered and deeply beautiful journey."
--Vincent Lam, author of "The Headmaster's Wager
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"Powerful, convincing, beautifully realized--it's hard to believe that "A Constellation of Vital Phenomena" is a first novel. Anthony Marra is a writer to watch and savor."
--T.C. Boyle, "New York Times" bestselling author of "When the Killing's Done" and "The Women
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"The book encompasses torture, infidelity, heartbreak and human trafficking, but also love, friendship, family and humour. Marra doesn't gloss over the horrors of the Chechen wars. But he doesn't dwell either, and despite the subject matter, this is not an exclusively dark book. In his afterword, Marra acknowledges a debt to Michael Ondaatje. Like Ondaatje's "Anil's Ghost," "Vital Phenomena "is about the gaps left behind by the forcibly disappeared. It's a difficult subject for fiction, but one Marra manages with a voice that approaches something like the gauzy beauty of Ondaatje's prose."
--"Maclean's
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"The simplest life cannot precisely be put down in details or marks on a page--the spirit fundamentally escapes language, if only because we can't pronounce the words. Nonetheless, "A Constellation of Vital Phenomena" proves that if anything, it's better, more beautiful and necessary to keep trying."
--Emily M. Keeler, "The Globe and Mail"
"Some good novels catch fire immediately, as if a writer had simply opened a Zippo lighter..

A first novel by a Pushcart Prize-winning writer is set in a rural village in December 2004 Chechnya, where failed doctor Akhmed harbors the traumatized 8-year-old daughter of a father abducted by Russian forces and treats a series of wounded rebels and refugees while exploring the shared past that binds him to the child. (historical fiction).