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Young Gustav Perle lives in ´neutral´ Switzerland, where the horrors of the Second World War seem a distant echo. He develops an intense friendship with a Jewish boy, Anton Zwiebel, which will impact on his entire life. In her heart-breaking new novel exploring friendship and betrayal, Rose Tremain, bestselling author of THE ROAD HOME, asks: what is the difference between friendship and love?

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The Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller
Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award
Winner of the South Bank Sky Arts Award
Longlisted for the Baileys Women´s Prize for Fiction
Shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize

What is the difference between friendship and love?

Gustav grows up in a small town in Switzerland, where the horrors of the Second World War seem a distant echo. But Gustav´s father has mysteriously died, and his adored mother Emilie is strangely cold and indifferent to him. Gustav´s life is a lonely one until he meets Anton. An intense lifelong friendship develops but Anton fails to understand how deeply and irrevocably his life and Gustav´s are entwined until it is almost too late...´This is a perfect novel´ Observer´The Gustav Sonata is beautifully rendered, and magnificent in its scope. It glows with mastery´ Ian McEwan

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"This is a perfect novel about life´s imperfection... Tremain is writing at the height of her inimitable powers... Remarkable and moving novel." Kate Kellaway Observer

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Rose Tremain, 1943 geboren, wuchs in London auf und studierte an der Sorbonne. Sie war Dozentin für Englisch, Lehrerin und Lektorin, veröffentlichte Romane und Kurzgeschichten, schrieb aber auch für Film, Funk und Fernsehen.Ihre Bücher, für die sie mit zahlreichen Preisen aufgezeichnet wurde (u.a. dem Prix Femina Etranger) erschienen in 14 Sprachen. Für Melodie der Stille erhielt sie 2000 den Whitebread-Preis. Sie lebt in Norfolk.

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