Synopses & Reviews
A New York Review Books Original
In 1985, the travel writer Jan Morris visited the storied city- state of Hav on assignment for New Gotham Magazine, writing a series of articles that were later published as Last Letters from Hav. She was there during the remarkable period that became known as the Intervention. In 2006 Morris returned to Hav to witness the changes that had occurred in the city, now a pariah nation ruled by radical nationalists who rewrote its rich history to reflect their own blinkered vision of the past. The story of Hav is the story of the modern world, but Hav is like no place on earth. In fact, it is wholly the product of Jan Morris’s prodigious imagination, built on the knowledge gained from her years of reporting from the great cities of Europe. As Jan Morris takes us along the streets of Hav, we hear its centuries-old morning trumpet call and the songs of its muezzin, we see the texture of the goods on offer at its markets, smell the odor of coffee and smoke drifting from its cafés. But Morris tells not only of Hav’s glorious past and quaint 20th-century iteration, in the chapters written in the 21st century, she brings the story up to date. In this final section of Hav, Morris looks at an almost unrecognizable land, stripped of its chaotic and contradictory splendor, renamed, and rebuilt. The place which was the culmination of history has become a simulacrum and a troubling symbol of our uneasy future.
Synopsis
"A touching love-letter, not to an Invisible City but to life itself" (The Independent) Enchanting travel novellas of a fictional Mediterranean city, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, now with a foreword from Ursula K. Le Guin
Hav is like no place on earth. Rumored to be the site of Troy, captured during the crusades and recaptured by Saladin, visited by Tolstoy, Hitler, Grace Kelly, and Princess Diana, this Mediterranean city-state is home to several architectural marvels and an annual rooftop race that is a feat of athleticism and insanity. As Jan Morris guides us through the corridors and quarters of Hav, we hear the mingling of Italian, Russian, and Arabic in its markets, delight in its famous snow raspberries, and meet the denizens of its casinos and caf s.
When Morris published Last Letters from Hav in 1985, it was short-listed for the Booker Prize. Here it is joined by Hav of the Myrmidons, a sequel that brings the story up-to-date. Twenty-first-century Hav is nearly unrecognizable. Sanitized and monetized, it is ruled by a group of fanatics who have rewritten its history to reflect their own blinkered view of the past.
Morris's only novel is dazzlingly sui-generis, part erudite travel memoir, part speculative fiction, part cautionary political tale. It transports the reader to an extraordinary place that never was, but could well be.
Synopsis
"Journey through a mystical country where everything is possible and easily arranged" in this 2-part travelogue set in a fictional
Mediterranean city of dreams (
Los Angeles Times).
"A touching lover letter . . . to life itself"--featuring Last Letters from Hav, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and a foreword by Ursula K. Le Guin (The Independent) Hav is like no place on earth. Rumored to be the site of Troy, captured during the crusades and recaptured by Saladin, visited by Tolstoy, Hitler, Grace Kelly, and Princess Diana, this Mediterranean city-state is home to several architectural marvels and an annual rooftop race that is a feat of athleticism and insanity. As Jan Morris guides us through the corridors and quarters of Hav, we hear the mingling of Italian, Russian, and Arabic in its markets, delight in its famous snow raspberries, and meet the denizens of its casinos and caf s.
When Morris published Last Letters from Hav in 1985, it was short-listed for the Booker Prize. Here it is joined by Hav of the Myrmidons, a sequel that brings the story up-to-date. Twenty-first-century Hav is nearly unrecognizable. Sanitized and monetized, it is ruled by a group of fanatics who have rewritten its history to reflect their own blinkered view of the past.
Morris's only novel is dazzlingly sui-generis, part erudite travel memoir, part speculative fiction, part cautionary political tale. It transports the reader to an extraordinary place that never was, but could well be.
"Jan Morris is to other travel writers what John le Carr is to other spy novelists." --New York Times
Synopsis
A New York Review Books Original
Hav is like no place on earth. Rumored to be the site of Troy, captured during the crusades and recaptured by Saladin, visited by Tolstoy, Hitler, Grace Kelly, and Princess Diana, this Mediterranean city-state is home to several architectural marvels and an annual rooftop race that is a feat of athleticism and insanity. As Jan Morris guides us through the corridors and quarters of Hav, we hear the mingling of Italian, Russian, and Arabic in its markets, delight in its famous snow raspberries, and meet the denizens of its casinos and cafés.
When Morris published Last Letters from Hav in 1985, it was short-listed for the Booker Prize. Here it is joined by Hav of the Myrmidons, a sequel that brings the story up-to-date. Twenty-first-century Hav is nearly unrecognizable. Sanitized and monetized, it is ruled by a group of fanatics who have rewritten its history to reflect their own blinkered view of the past.
Morris’s only novel is dazzlingly sui-generis, part erudite travel memoir, part speculative fiction, part cautionary political tale. It transports the reader to an extraordinary place that never was, but could well be.
About the Author
Jan Morris was born in 1926, is Anglo-Welsh, and lives in Wales. She has written some forty books, including the Pax Britannica trilogy about the British Empire; studies of Wales, Spain, Venice, Oxford, Manhattan, Sydney, Hong Kong, and Trieste; six volumes of collected travel essays; two memoirs; two capricious biographies; and a couple of novels—but she defines her entire oeuvre as “disguised autobiography.” she is an honorary D.Litt. of the University of Wales and a Commander of the British Empire. Her memoir
Conundrum is available as a New York Review Book Classic.
Ursula K. Le Guin has published twenty-one novels as well as volumes of short stories, poems, essays, and works for children. Among her novels are The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed, both winners of the nebula and Hugo awards.