Far to Go
Published on 15. June 2011
Book
Hardback
320 pages
978-0-7553-7941-5 (ISBN)
Description
Longlisted for the 2011 MAN BOOKER PRIZE for Fiction, FAR TO GO is a powerful and profoundly moving story about one family's epic journey to flee the Nazi occupation of their homeland in 1939, and above all to save the life of a six-year-old boy. Pavel and Anneliese Bauer are affluent, secular Jews, whose lives are turned upside down by the arrival of the German forces in Czechoslovakia. Desperate to avoid deportation, the Bauers flee to Prague with their six-year-old son, Pepik, and his beloved nanny, Marta. When the family try to flee without her to Paris, Marta betrays them to her Nazi boyfriend. But it is through Marta's determination that Pepik secures a place on a Kindertransport, though he never sees his parents or Marta again. Inspired by Alison Pick's own grandparents who fled their native Czechoslovakia for Canada during the Second World War, FAR TO GO is a deeply personal and emotionally harrowing novel.
Reviews / Votes
'Clean, crisp and unencumbered. Pick ... creates small moments that are both lovely and frightening ... It's very deftly structures and the storytelling is seamless' -- Globe and Mail 'Somewhere between a book and a miracle' -- Catherine Ryan Hyde, author of Love in the Present Tense 'A nuanced and layered portrait of betrayal ... An intriguing experiment in the art of storytelling' -- Montreal Gazette 'Expertly crafted in every sense' -- thestar.com 'Pick unties the dark knots of the past to imagine the stories that could never otherwise be known' -- Marina Endicott, author of Good to a FaultMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Headline Publishing Group
Dimensions
Height: 29 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 241 mm
Weight
550 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7553-7941-5 (9780755379415)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Alison Pick's grandparents were secular Jews, living in Czechoslovakia during the Nazi invasion. In FAR TO GO, she explores the history of a country and its people with which she has a strong personal connection. Alison was the 2002 Bronwen Walace Award winner for the most promising writer under thirty-five in Canada. She has published two acclaimed volumes of poetry and her first novel, The Sweet Edge , was widely acclaimed. She lives in Toronto with her husband and daughter.