The Last Hundred Days

✍ Scribed by McGuinness, Patrick

• Book ID: 107204772
• Publisher: Seren Books
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 241 KB
• Category: Fiction

✦ Synopsis

Once the gleaming "Paris of the East," Bucharest in 1989 is a world of corruption and paranoia, in thrall to the repressive regime of Nicolae Ceausescu. Old landmarks are falling to demolition crews, grocery shelves are empty, and informants are everywhere. Into this state of crisis, a young British man arrives to take a university post he never interviewed for. He is taken under the wing of Leo O’Heix, a colleague and master of the black market, and falls for the sleek Celia, daughter of a party apparatchik. Yet he soon learns that in this society, friendships are compromised, and loyalty is never absolute. And as the regime’s authority falters, he finds himself uncomfortably, then dangerously, close to the eye of the storm.

By turns thrilling and satirical, studded with poetry and understated revelation, The Last Hundred Days captures the commonplace terror of Cold War Eastern Europe. Patrick McGuinness’s first novel is unforgettable.

Review

Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize

Shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award

Shortlisted for the Desmond Elliot Prize

"[McGuinness] is observant, reflective, witty and precise. He is capable of combining the essayistic, the lyrical, the humorous and the aphoristic, sometimes within a single paragraph... An incisive and engaging account of a society and a historical period that is essential to remember, especially now." - *Francine Prose, New York Times Book Review *

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"[A] memorable story about a pivotal moment in history." -Kevin Canfield, Kansas City Star* *

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About the Author

Patrick McGuinness was born in Tunisia in 1968 and lived in Bucharest in the years leading up to the Romanian revolution. He is a professor of French and comparative literature at Oxford University and a fellow of St. Anne's College. As a poet, he has won an Eric Gregory Award and Poetry magazine's Levinson Prize. His latest collection, Jilted City , was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. McGuinness lives between Oxford and North West Wales. His web site is www.patrickmcguinness.org.uk.