The encyclopaedia of good reasons
[The Swiss list]
Person: Cantieni, Monica
serial: The Swiss list
Year: 2014
Language: English
Scope: 233 p.
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- Contents:
- The narrator in Monica Cantieni's novel is a young girl, an immigrant to Switzerland whose adoption is still to be finalized. The girl is learning German - the language spoken in her new community - and collects words and phrases in matchboxes. Her narrative, infused with a child's uncannily perceptive idea of the world, moves between her days in the orphanage and her new life with her adoptive parents. Set in the time of the crucial 1970 Swiss referendum on immigration, we encounter a host of colourful characters who struggle to make Switzerland their home: Eli, the Spanish bricklayer; Toni, the Italian factory worker with film-star looks; Madame Jelisaweta, the Yugoslav hairdresser; and Milena, the mysterious girl in the wardrobe. The tormented relationship between her new parents haunts her days as she creates with her adoptive grandfather Tat the 'Encyclopaedia of Good Reasons' with which, one hopes, she will set out on her life's journey. A book with a very warm heart, rarely has a young girl's narrative been at once so uproariously hilarious and so deeply moving, so rooted in the issues of today's Europe and so universal.
- Born in 1965 in Thalwil, Switzerland, Monica Cantieni lives in Wettingen and Vienna. She is head of Multimedia in the Culture Department of Swiss Radio and Television. She debuted as a writer with 'Hieronymus' Kinder' ('Hieronymus' Children') in 1996. The German edition of 'The Encyclopaedia of Good Reasons' was shortlisted for the prestigious Swiss Book Prize in 2011.
Title Information
Title: The encyclopaedia of good reasons
serial: The Swiss list
Person: Cantieni, Monica
Translator: McLaughlin, Donal
Publisher : Seagull Books
ISBN: 9780857421999
Category: Literature & Entertainment, Novels & Narratives, Outsiders
File size: 1 MB
Format: PDF
Loan period: 21 days
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