* Description
* "In North America today, there are few novelists like Heighton, an award-winning poet and essayist who also writes
carefully plotted literary adventures . . . [He has] inherited a post-Conrad tradition, which extends from E.M. Forster
to Graham Greene to John Le Carr� . . . literary practitioners and epic storytellers. The Nightingale Won't Let You
is a novel about big, global forces and small, moments. Politics, for Heighton, happens on all levels:
the international and the interpersonal . . . Heighton is as attuned to the micro-politics of the village as to the
macro-politics of Europe and the Middle East . . . His focus is sometimes hermetic, sometimes global, and he balances
violent passages with lyrical descriptions of intimacy . . . The novel is full of beautiful asides. It's also full of
memorable characters whose friendships are fraught and rich . . . For Heighton, there is no place that's removed from
history; there are only people who dream of living in such places." --The Walrus
"The lingering shadows of war -- physical, emotional, psychological and cultural -- loom heavily over The Nightingale
Won't Let You , the powerful fourth novel by Canadian writer and poet Steven Heighton. As a counter to that
darkness, though, there is a faltering sense of light, a glimmer, not quite of hope, but of humanity, home and love,
family and community. The combination makes for an unsettling, affecting read...The specificity and physicality of the
language is evocative and, in context, electrifying...In the ruins of modern civilization, in the aftermath of
atrocities and within the continuing conflict over arbitrary borders and clashes of cultures, Heighton has created a
novel about the meaning of home, the search for belonging, and the ongoing creation -- and understanding -- of the self.
The novel serves as a stirring reminder that the fences we build can serve as both barriers and prisons, and may, at any
time, be torn away." --The Toronto Star
"His stories ruminate on the question of whether, and how, we can commit to practising brotherhood within our
multicultural nation and in the conflict zones of the wider world. Such exquisite, powerful meditations on who we are
place Heighton among the great Canadian writers...For all Heighton's obsession with foreign borders and personal
boundaries, it is Canada that seems to be his central concern: the fact that we are not a nation united by mother tongue
or customs or race, but strenuously--vociferously--multicultural, individuals with roots in hundreds of nations with
hundreds of borders. Is it really possible to be our multiple selves--true, strong and free--and, at the same time one,
united country? This is a question frequently posed by Canadian writers of colour, and one Heighton ponders most
elegantly as well." - Literary Review of Canada
"In scintillating prose and with masterly control of his plot and characters, poet and novelist Heighton (Afterlands)
weaves a spellbinding tale of love, loyalty, and betrayal . . . highly recommended to all readers." --Library Journal
(starred review)
"This book won't let the reader ... a rich and disturbing literary thriller." --Annie Proulx, author of Barkskins
"Steven Heighton writes with a beauty and a precision and a soul that's always astounded me. He captures the shock and
trauma of war in a way that only a novelist at the height of his powers can. And he captures mid-leap that act of giving
oneself completely to another in all its fragility and fear and grace that only a poet at the height of his powers can."
--Joseph Boyden, author of The Orenda
"This is a thrilling story, set in an abandoned and 'forbidden' village in Cyprus. Each character is uniquely drawn;
the interactions between characters carefully nuanced. Steven Heighton creates an unexpected and absorbing cast, thrown
together as a result of war and circumstance. He shows that despite the very real effects of trauma, individuals are
capable of experiencing a world that can also be gentle, and forgiving. This is a book you will not put down!" --Frances
Itani, author of Deafening
"Heighton is an experienced adventurer in literary form....A novel of big ideas and beautiful language." --The New York
Times Book Review
"I can't think of another writer, not even Ondaatje, who can be so real while being so mannered. And musical." --The
Globe and Mail
"Any novel by Heighton is important." --Winnipeg Free Press
"External forces encroaching on self-sufficient territories are as much a signature of Heighton's novels as the
carefully considered words and observations that lend his lines their voltage . . . The Nightingale Won't Let You
demonstrates the vitality that marks all his fiction, verse and criticism." --The National Post
"As rendered in Steven Heighton's The Nightingale Won't Let You , Varosha is fantastically alluring, a place to
seek refuge from the intrusive terrors of the 21st century--a ruin-as-paradise. Its spectral avenues and skyline of
"dead hotels" invoke the collapsed civilizations of J.G. Ballard or the discreetly inhabited post-disaster landscapes
found in David McMillan's photographs of Chernobyl and Pripyat . . . [Colonel] Kaya is a memorable, contradictory,
despicable rogue who could easily be afforded a novel all his own." --Quill & Quire
Number of Pages: 352
Genre: Fiction + Literature Genres
Sub-Genre: Literary
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Hamish Hamilton
Author: Steven Heighton
Language: English
Estimated shipping dimensions: 5.9INCH X 8.9INCH X 1.0INCH
DPCI : 248-25-9433
UPC : 9780735232563
TCIN : 51551933
Estimated shippimg weight: 0.95POUND