Two Lives
  • Published: 15 June 2010
  • ISBN: 9780141044613
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $30.00

Two Lives

Reading Turgenev & My House in Umbria

Formats & editions
EBook
30 Oct 2013
EBook
7 Apr 1992
Paperback
15 Jun 2010
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Two beautiful, memorable novels in one volume, both focussing on women who retreat into their imaginations until the boundaries between what is real and what is not become blurred.

In 'Reading Turgenev', an Irish country girl is trapped in a loveless marriage with an older man. But she finds unusual solace - in secret meetings with a man who shares her passion for Russian novels. This novella was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

The second story, 'My House in Umbria' tells how romantic novelist Emily Delahunty helps the survivors of a bomb attack on a train and invents colourful pasts for her patients.
  • Published: 15 June 2010
  • ISBN: 9780141044613
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $30.00
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About the author

William Trevor

William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork, Ireland in 1928. He is the author of fourteen much-lauded novels: he won the Whitbread Prize three times and was short-listed for the Booker Prize four times, most recently with The Story of Lucy Gault in 2002. Trevor was widely recognized to be one of the greatest short-story writers in the English language. In 1999, William Trevor received the prestigious David Cohen Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement, and in 2002 he was awarded an honorary knighthood for his services to literature. He died in 2016.

Also by William Trevor

Last Stories
Mrs Eckdorf in O'Neill's Hotel
Elizabeth Alone
Fools of Fortune
The Silence in the Garden
Nights at the Alexandra
Miss Gomez and the Brethren
See all

Praise for Two Lives

As rich and moving as anything I have read in years. When I reached the end of both of these marvellous novels, I wanted to start right again at the beginning

Guardian

These novels will endure. And in every beautiful sentence there is not a word out of place

Anita Brookner, Spectator

Inquisitive and loving. Trevor's is among the most subtle and sophisticated fiction being written today

New York Review of Books

A writer at the peak of his powers; it reminds you what good reading is all about

Chicago Sun Times

Reading Turgenev is one of the most beautiful and memorable things he has written. It stays in your memory -like Turgenev

Independent on Sunday

He writes like an angel, but is determined to wring your heart. Trevor at his most evocative and haunting

Daily Mail