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  • Published: 1 August 2011
  • ISBN: 9781446485347
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 272

Illuminations



In this fiercely lyrical novel, Hoffman explores the place and force of art in a world riven with violence.

Isabel Merton is a renowned concert pianist whose playing is marked by rare intensity. At the height of her career, she feels increasingly torn between the expressive musical realm she inhabits, and the fragmented life she leads as an itinerant artist, with its frequent flights, anonymous hotels and arbitrary encounters.
Then Isabel meets Anzor Islikhanov, a political exile from war-torn Chechnya driven by a powerful desire to help and avenge his people. As their paths cross in several cities, they are drawn to each other - until a menacing incident throws Isabel into crisis.

  • Published: 1 August 2011
  • ISBN: 9781446485347
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 272

About the author

Eva Hoffman

Eva Hoffman was born in Cracow, Poland, and emigrated in her teens to America. The recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Whiting Award and an award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, she currently lives in London.

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Praise for Illuminations

An astute depiction of our era's social and political migration

Christine Madden, Irish Times

Hoffman captures the exhilaration of performance

Times Literary Supplement

Hoffman's intense novel ebbs and flows with passion and suppression...Hoffman is a writer of high intelligence and it is invigorating to spend time in her company

Sunday Telegraph

Intellectually sophisticated.

Jem Poster, Guardian

Paints a powerful portrait ... Hoffman achieves that most difficult feat of conveying the emotional effect of music in prose... a highly accomplished, edgy and timely novel

Daily Mail

Poignant story

Sally Cousins, The Daily Telegraph

Wonderful descriptions of the effect music has on its audience

Lavinia Greenlaw, Financial Times