Birds Without Wings

Quotes

"Masterful. . . . Under de Bernières' care, children are born, lovers dance in the fields, old men play backgammon and nurse grudges, and pink poppies flutter in the wind. It's a world long gone, but living again."
—The Vancouver Sun

"A magnificent, poetic, colossal novel. . . . Louis de Bernières' rapaciously sensuous writing makes the pages of this book crackle with heat and resonate with birdsong. . . . In every sense, a sublime book."
—The Irish Times

"With a book as rich as Birds Without Wings . . . we’re free to sit back and enjoy a huge story well told."
—Montreal Gazette

"Quite astonishing and compulsively readable. . . . ["de Bernières subtly differentiated characters attach themselves to us and won't let go."
—Los Angeles Times Book Review

"An absorbing epic. . . . de Bernières [is] adept at juxtaposing brutality with episodes of high comedy or romance."
—The New York Times Book Review

“Louis de Bernières has the startling and wonderful gift of being able to take a history lesson and make it personal, engaging and consequential to the reader. . . . Reading Birds Without Wings is a fascinating trip to an exotic, impassioned land struggling to give birth to a nation in the early-twentieth century.”
—Calgary Herald

"A rich, mottled chorus, an amalgam of subplots that weave and complement each other in such a way that the town itself might be better called the central character. . . . For those who do not devour it immediately, Birds Without Wings will sit as great epics sit, on one's shelf demanding to be read, making one feel irresponsible and guilty, provoking resolutions of 'must read this before death.' Do read it before you die. It would be a terrible thing to have missed a work of such importance, beauty and compassion."
—Camilla Gibb, The Globe and Mail

"This is one of the great novels about the early 20th century and the emerging modern world, an epic of human disaster, on small and grand scales. Against the background of the collapsing Ottoman Empire, armies march, populations flee, and mountains of corpses lie rotting, the landscapes of horror brought fully to our imaginations in terms so visceral we could weep. . . . One of the most profound and moving books you're likely to read."
—The New Zealand Herald

"Dazzling. . . . A fabulous book in the tradition of Tolstoy and Dickens. . . . So joyous and heartbreaking, so rich and musical and wise, that reading it is like discovering anew the enchanting power of fiction."
—San Francisco Chronicle

"Louis de Bernières is in the direct line that runs through Dickens and Evelyn Waugh . . . he has only to look into his world, one senses, for it to rush into reality, colours and touch and taste."
—A. S. Byatt

"de Bernières has unquestionably crafted a masterpiece."
—The Chronicle Herald

"de Bernières is at his finest when he allows us to experience hardships and horrors through the lives of the villagers. He writes movingly of the battle of Gallipoli from the Turkish point of view, and the brutal, dehumanizing conditions of trench warfare."
—The Seattle Times

"Highly impressive in its ambition and relative readability, to say nothing of its relevance for a time when the intersection of religion, nationalism and war is once again reshaping the world."
—National Post

"de Bernières demands complete attention from his readers, but that close attention required is well rewarded. . . . Part novel, part historical document. This is a difficult book that stretches the traditional form of the novel."
—Edmonton Journal

"This is a work that will move you deeply. A profound sadness and world-weariness pervade it, though at times it moves us to anger and pity…. What makes the work so poignant is de Bernières’ exquisite ability to draw complex and fully realized characters about whom we come to care. . . . de Bernières will not let us forget that these things have happened and will happen again."
—Kitchener-Waterloo Record

"An absorbing read about a remote but captivating time. The Ottoman world's break-up is a rich, poignant story, and Mr. de Bernières is a good storyteller."
—The Economist

"Enchanting. . . . At once intimate and sweeping."
—The Sydney Morning Herald

"[Birds Without Wings] bears de Bernières’ literary hallmarks—vast emotional breadth, dazzling characterization, rich historical detail (and gruesome battle scenes), swerving between languid sensuality and horror, humour and choking despair."
—Scotland on Sunday

"The most eagerly awaited novel of the year. . . . In counterpoint to the varieties of love, Birds Without Wings delivers the hideous violence of mechanised warfare. Its 100-page centrepiece, in which Karatavuk (“Blackbird”) recounts the terror, squalor and fitful heroism of the Gallipoli campaign, will have critics reaching for their War and Peace. In truth, de Bernières . . . is too centrifugal and carnivalesque a novelist for the Tolstoy comparison. However, he makes of the carnage a mesmerising patchwork of horror, humour and humanity."
—Independent (UK)