WILSON, ROBERT McLIAM (1964)
Manfred's Pain

Picador, London, UK. 1992. First edition. First printing. Hardcover. Forest green cloth with silver-stamped titles on the spine. With yellow dustjacket with illustration and red/black titles.
197 pp. 14,5 x 22,25 x 2,25 cm. 380 gr. ISBN-10 0330324179. ISBN-13 9780330324175. Jacket painting 'Portrait de Mateau F. de Soto' by Pablo Picasso. Author photograph by Donovan Wylie.

Robert McLiam Wilson's extraordinary first novel, 'Ripley Bogle', won four prestigious literary prizes. 'Manfred's Pain', his second work of fiction, is an astonishing tour-de-force which explores sexual love, the pain of loss and the terrifying consequences of violence.

Manfred, a lonely old Jewish man living in London, feels himself closing life in common with the century. But he welcomes the pain which racks him: he cherishes it likean olf friend. Manfred's pain, like his past, is an amazing thing, a rage he nurtures against the dying of the night.As a young soldier, he fought a war for the British in Italy and North Africa; he married a beautiful Jewish girl who survived Birkenau; they had a son; but in the long shadow of the war, Manfred begins to destroy the things he loves most...And now, haunted by guilt and solitude, he revives the sweetness of his life in monthly meetings with his wife Emma, a ritual as strange as it is moving, as terrible as it is filled with the hope of a lifetime.

'Manfred's Pain' is a poignant and beautifully written book which captures the humanity of one man's life. Robert McLiam Wilson's amazing command of language is again in evidence, coupled with a new maturity and strength which confirms him as a major literary talent.

Name and date on frontendpaper. Corners not bumped. A fine copy in a fine unclipped dustjacket. In excellent condition. As new.

BOOKNUMBER: 15086