New Releases by Alan Hollinghurst

Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker • The Winnipeg Free Press • The Guardian • TIME • The Irish Times • Kirkus Reviews • Publishers Weekly • Slate • A New York Times Notable Book of 2024 • From the internationally acclaimed winner of the Booker Prize, a piercing novel that envisions modern England through the lens of one man’s acutely observed and often unnerving experience, as he struggles with class and race, art and sexuality, love and violence. "The finest novel yet from one of the great writers of our time." —The Guardian Did I have a grievance? Most of us, without looking far, could find something that had harmed us, and oppressed us, and unfairly held us back. I tried not to dwell on it, thought it healthier not to, though I’d lived my short life so far in a chaos of privilege and prejudice. Dave Win, the son of a British dressmaker and a Burmese man he’s never met, is thirteen years old when he gets a scholarship to a top boarding school. With the doors of elite English society cracked open for him, heady new possibilities lie before Dave, even as he is exposed to the envy and viciousness of his wealthy classmates, above all that of Giles Hadlow, whose worldly parents sponsored the scholarship and who find in Dave someone they can more easily nurture than their brutish son. Our Evenings follows Dave from the 1960s on—through the possibilities that remained open for him, and others that proved to be illusory: as a working-class brown child in a decidedly white institution; a young man discovering queer culture and experiencing his first, formative love affairs; a talented but often overlooked actor, on the road with an experimental theater company; and an older Londoner whose late-in-life marriage fills his days with an unexpected sense of happiness and security. Moving in and out of Dave’s orbit are the Hadlows. Estranged from his parents, who remain close to Dave, Giles directs his privilege into a career as a powerful right-wing politician, whose reactionary vision for England pokes perilous holes in Dave’s stability. And as the novel accelerates towards the present day, the two men’s lives and values will finally collide in a cruel shock of violence. This is “one of our most gifted writers” (The Boston Globe) sweeping readers from our past to our present through the beauty, pain, and joy of one deeply observed life.

Londres, 1983. Aos 25 anos, William Beckwith é exuberantemente gay e escandalosamente sedutor. Durante um engate numa casa de banho pública, o jovem salva a vida de um homem mais velho. Este revela ser Charles, Lord Nantwich, igualmente gay e suficientemente colunável para aparecer nos diários de Evelyn Waugh.Quando voltam a encontrar-se, Charles pede ao jovem para escrever a sua biografia e entrega-lhe os diários em que confiou o melhor e o pior da sua multifacetada e emocionante vida. É com relutância que William aceita lê-los. Mas o que vai descobrir abala a sua pose altiva, pois Charles é uma figura extraordinária e emblemática da elite homossexual inglesa. Juntas, as histórias dos dois homens compõem um retrato meticuloso e irónico da vida e da cultura gay inglesas.A Biblioteca da Piscina é uma agridoce crónica de costumes, onde o passado e o presente exibem os seus objectos de desejo, os seus códigos mais ou menos secretos, usos e práticas sexuais e amorosas.

In ‘De Sparsholt-affaire’ volg je de meeslepende levens van de Engelse David Sparsholt en zijn zoon Johnny. Aan de hand van hun ervaringen zie je op ontroerende wijze hoe er over een periode van zestig jaar over homoseksualiteit werd gedacht. Als zeventienjarige komt David aan het begin van de Tweede Wereldoorlog in contact met twee mannelijke medestudenten. Hij is getrouwd met Connie, maar er ontstaat een hartstochtelijke vriendschap met gevoelens die hij voor Connie nooit heeft gekend. Johnny daarentegen groeit op in het moderne Londen waar hij van zijn homoseksualiteit geen geheim hoeft te maken. Hoe kan het dat de geheime relatie van zijn vader nog steeds een grote invloed heeft op Johnny’s leven? Alan Hollinghurst (1954) is een Britse auteur die vooral bekend is geworden door zijn geruchtmakende boek ‘De schoonheidslijn’, waar hij in 2004 de Booker Prize mee won. Hollinghurst schrijft met een frisse blik over het nette Engeland, waar veel meer achter schuil gaat dan alleen de mooie gebouwen, goede manieren en liefde voor kunst en literatuur. Hij weet op poëtische wijze thema’s als homoseksualiteit, verlangen en seks te verwoorden op een achtergrond van het romantische en intellectuele Britse leven. Naast auteur stond Hollinghurst jarenlang aan het hoofd van de The Times Literary Supplement.

«Hollinghurst è un maestro della narrazione.» John Banville «Al tempo stesso intimo e vasto... Un romanzo magistrale, che unisce il piacere sensuale alla sapienza dello sguardo.» Geoff Dyer Passano i decenni, e di David Sparsholt si continua a parlare. Fin dall’autunno del 1940, quando in una Oxford rabbuiata dalla guerra, tra cortili oscuri e veglie notturne per individuare aerei nemici, la sua bellezza abbagliante fulmina il circolo di giovani intellettuali raccolti intorno all’insicuro erede di un celebre romanziere, Evert Dax. Tutti nel gruppo ne sono allo stesso modo ammaliati. Attratti dal suo corpo statuario di canottiere quanto dall’apparente innocenza di David, recluta diciottenne in procinto di partire per il fronte, preda dei loro sguardi di esteti ma capace di approfittare di ogni loro debolezza. Aleggia ancora quell’apparizione più di trent’anni dopo, quando Evert e gli amici si riuniscono nel suo decadente appartamento di storico dell’arte in una Londra non più oscurata dai bombardamenti ma dagli scioperi dei minatori. E la fama conturbante di David insegue implacabile il figlio Johnny, aspirante pittore nella swinging London e poi ritrattista affermato per i nuovi ricchi della finanza e dei reality, lo perseguita nei suoi amori giovanili quanto nelle tardive trasgressioni notturne. Il suo nome sopravvive all’epoca degli scandali pruriginosi che stroncano ministri, imprenditori ed eroi di guerra, supera i tempi degli incontri clandestini nei bagni delle stazioni e nei parchi pubblici, delle passioni decennali celate dietro pudichi giri di parole, delle allusioni e dei segreti inconfessabili, per approdare nelle stanze di un amore alla luce del sole, affascinante e impenetrabile enigma sullo sfondo di tre generazioni che vivono sulla loro pelle i cambiamenti sociali e i passaggi cruciali di un secolo.

Em outubro de 1940, o jovem David Sparsholt chega a Oxford. Elegante, atlético e carismático, parece não ter noção do efeito que provoca nos outros, particularmente em Evert Dax, filho solitário de um escritor célebre. Enquanto Londres é devastada pelo Blitz, Oxford como que paira numa névoa de alheamento e incerteza, e as noites de blackout parecem encorajar e encobrir encontros que, em tempos normais, seriam impossíveis. Ao longo deste período conturbado, David e Evert forjam uma amizade improvável que vai uni-los ao longo de décadas. Retrato magistral de um grupo de amigos unidos durante três gerações pela arte, pela literatura e pelo amor, O Caso Sparsholt explora anos cruciais do século XX, cujas consequências se estendem aos dias de hoje. Uma obra-prima pela mão de um dos mais brilhantes escritores de língua inglesa da atualidade.

In 1940, the handsome, athletic, and charismatic David Sparsholt arrives at Oxford University to study engineering, unaware of his effect on others—especially on Evert Dax, the lonely son of a celebrated novelist who is destined to become a writer himself. Spanning three generations, The Sparsholt Affair plumbs the ways the friendship between these two men will influence their lives—and the lives of others’—for decades to come. Richly observed and emotionally charged, this is a dazzling novel of fathers and sons, of family and legacy, and of the longing for permanence amid life’s inevitable transience.

Londres, années 1980. William Beckwith est un jeune dandy extraverti, vivant librement son homosexualité. Autour de la piscine du Corinthian, lieu de drague et de sexe, fréquentations et liaisons amoureuses se multiplient. Un jour, William rencontre lord Nantwich, un homme âgé, puissant et conservateur, qui lui demande d''écrire sa biographie. Premier roman d''Alan Hollinghurst, paru en 1988 en Angleterre, La Piscine-Bibliothèque dessine le portrait brillant d''une époque, celle de l''apogée d''une sexualité débridée, avant que le sida frappe la communauté homosexuelle. Cette oeuvre majeure reparaît dans une nouvelle traduction, établie en collaboration avec l''auteur, qui a depuis signé La Ligne de beauté et L''Enfant de l''étranger. II est considéré comme l''un des plus grands romanciers anglais contemporains.

Tout commence en 1913, dans le jardin de la maison de campagne des Sawle dans le Middlesex. Etudiant a Cambridge, le timide George Sawle a invite aux Deux Arpents un de ses camarades, l''aristocratique et enigmatique Cecil Valance. Ces jours dans la maison familiale et le poeme qu''ils inspirent a Cecil vont changer leur destin. Et plus encore celui de Daphne, la soeur de George. En ce printemps ou rien n''annonce les proches bouleversements de l''Histoire, un pacte se noue secretement entre les trois jeunes gens, point de depart d''une fresque saisissante a travers le XXe siecle, par l''un des plus grands romanciers anglais contemporains. Un immense roman dans lequel il faut se laisser glisser. On en sort ebloui comme rarement. Alexandre Fillon, Livres-hebdo. Bienvenue dans le vertige du temps et des caprices de la memoire. Emily Barnett, Les Inrockuptibles. Ce livre a recu le prix du meilleur livre etranger en 2013.

Sommer 1983. Als der zwanzigjährige Nick Guest eine Dachkammer bei den Feddens im reichen Londoner Stadtteil Notting Hill bezieht, taucht er in eine ihm bis dahin völlig fremde Welt ein. Nicks Entwicklung vom kleinbürgerlichen Provinzler zum dandyhaften Kosmopoliten ist gleichzeitig ein großartiges Sittengemälde der Thatcher-Ära, für das Hollinghurst mit dem Booker-Preis ausgezeichnet wurde.

En el verano de 1913, George Sawle, estudiante de Cambridge, vuelve a pasar unos dias con su familia y trae un invitado: Cecil Balance, aristocrata y poeta. Los dos amigos son amantes, en secreto, como corresponde a la epoca. Cecil, antes de marcharse, escribe en el cuaderno de autografos de la hermana de George un poema que devendra mitico para una generacion, un poema no se sabe si inspirado en la jovencisima Daphne o en George. Y los secretos e intimidades de aquel fin de semana se convertiran en acontecimientos miticos de una gran historia, contada de diferentes maneras a lo largo del siglo por criticos y biografos, en un relato sobre la seduccion y el secreto de Cecil y el enigma del deseo y de la literatura. La novela ha sido finalista del Premio Man Booker en 2011 y ganadora del Premio Galaxy National Book.

The critical event in Berenice, the death of Titus''s father, the Emperor Vespasian, happens a week before the play opens. Thereafter Titus knows that his separation from Berenice is inevitable. The breaking off of a great love affair involves too the hopes of Antiochus, himself long in love with Berenice. The play pushes all three of its principals to the brink, not of revenge but of self-murder, before in her sublime last speech Berenice redeems and directs them all in an act of collective abnegation.Many tears are shed, but not a drop of blood. The effect is unconventional, and profound: the pained acceptance of the irreconcilable in human affairs, and the surrender, by each of the main characters, of the person they most love. Bajazet is Racine''s most violent drama; it ends, like Phèdre, with a female character''s on-stage suicide, here the culmination of a vividly described sequence of off-stage murders. The setting, in a claustrophobic space within the harem at Constantinople, menaced from both without and within, seems to license a violence of emotion as well as of deed.Violent too are the repeated reversals of fortune, and the terrifying acceleration of the play towards its inexorable catastrophe. Alan Hollinghurst''s translation of Berenice premiered at the Donmar Warehouse, London, in October 2012 and Bajazet, at the Almeida Theatre, London, in November 1990.

Tutto ha inizio nel 1913 nel giardino di una casa nella campagna inglese, quando il timido George Sawle torna da Cambridge insieme a un compagno di studi: l''aristocratico, magnetico, capriccioso poeta Cecil Valance. Si fermano solo tre giorni alla tenuta "Due Acri", ma quel poco tempo è destinato a cambiare la loro vita.

The Stranger’s Child is Alan Hollinghurst’s masterpiece, the book that cements his position as one of the finest novelists of our time. In its scope, intelligence and elegance. Sixteen-year-old Daphne Sawle is reading Tennyson in a hammock in the garden of Two Acres, the family home in suburban London. Her brother George arrives to visit with his Cambridge friend Cecil Valance, a handsome, assured and sometimes outrageous young man with a burgeoning reputation as a poet. After a tantalizing and dramatic weekend Cecil writes a long poem in Daphne’s autograph album as a parting gift. It is titled “Two Acres,” and both Daphne and George (whose feelings for Cecil also go well beyond mere friendship) immediately see how important the poem is – but none of them can foresee the complex and lasting effects it will have on all their lives. When the next section of the novel begins, everything has changed: Daphne is married to Cecil’s brother Dudley Valance; George to a historian named Madeleine; and Cecil is dead, killed by a sniper in World War One. A Cabinet officer and man of letters named Sebastian Stokes is compiling an edition of Cecil’s poems. He is especially curious about Cecil’s personal (and passionate) letters and unpublished poems, papers that seem to have gone missing. The book leaps forward to a party to celebrate Daphne’s seventieth birthday. We meet Peter Rowe, a music teacher, and his boyfriend, Paul Bryant, a bank employee with a feeling for Cecil’s poetry. Soon Paul is taking up an idea that Peter abandoned: to write a biography of Cecil Valance. It means making some startling discoveries about a past that the Valance family would prefer to keep in sepia and shadows. The Stranger’s Child is that rare thing, a historical novel whose characters, in their passions and betrayals, constantly surprise the reader, and will surely be read for generations to come.

The National Bestseller, Winner of the 2004 Man Booker Prize for Fiction, and National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist.

William Beckwith es un joven de veinticinco años, homosexual y aristócrata Ligando en unos lavabos públicos salva la vida de Lord Nantwich, homosexual también pero muy viejo, que acudió a recordar pasadas glorias y ha sufrido un paro cardíaco Vuelven a en

Een jonge homoseksuele aristocraat schrijft de memoires van een 83-jarige homoseksuele lord met wie hij bevriend was geraakt.

Obsessed with one of his pupils, teacher Edward Manners becomes embroiled in affairs with two other men, but only after discovering the life and work of Symbolist painter Edgard Orst does he come to understand the implications of obsession. Reprint.

Moving into the attic room in the Notting Hill home of the wealthy, politically connected Fedden family in 1983, twenty-year-old Nick Guest becomes caught up in the rising fortunes of this glamorous family and finds his own life forever altered by his association during the boom years of the 1980s. By the author of The Swimming-Pool Library. 30,000 first printing.