Showing titles in Biographical Fiction

The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, the first novel Nabokov wrote in English, is a tantalizing literary mystery in which a writer’s half brother searches to unravel the enigma of the life of the famous author of Albinos in Black, The Back of the Moon, and Doubtful Asphodel. A characteristically cunning play on identity and deception, the novel concludes “ I am Sebastian, or Sebastian is I, or perhaps we both are someone whom neither of us knows.”

A beguiling trio of fantastical and farcical anti-fairy tales about a giantess who builds a magical “cottage of one’s own,” battles a silver-scaled sea monster, and defies governesses and gravity alike.

Les femmes, ces grandes oubliées de l’Histoire. Mais comment auraient-elles pu y obtenir leur juste place lorsque seuls les hommes l’écrivaient ? Montluçon, 1816. La jeune Héloïse de la Roche, aristocrate à l’avenir tout tracé, crée le scandale en refusant d’épouser l’homme choisi par sa mère. Après plusieurs années passées au couvent, Héloïse, rebelle et intrépide, s’installe à Paris, où elle découvre une misère qu’elle n’aurait jamais imaginée. Un Paris du début du XIXe siècle, où la population des laissés-pour-compte tente de survivre, où tout s’achète et tout se vend.

At age nineteen, young Eton graduate Eric Blair set sail for India, dreading the assignment ahead. Along with several other young conscripts, he would be trained for three years as a servant of the British Empire, overseeing the local policemen in Burma. Navigating the social, racial, and class politics of his fellow British at the same time as he learned the local languages and struggled to control his men would prove difficult enough. But doing all of this while grappling with his own self-worth, his sense that he was not cut out for this, is soon overwhelming for the young Blair.

Summer, 1926. Ernest Hemingway and his wife, Hadley, take refuge from the blazing heat of Paris in a villa in the south of France. They swim and play bridge, and drink gin with abandon. But wherever they go they are accompanied by the glamorous and irrepressible Fife. Fife is Hadley's best friend. She is also Ernest's lover. Hadley is the first Mrs. Hemingway, but neither she nor Fife will be the last. Each Mrs. Hemingway thought their love would last forever; each one was wrong.

Moth Smoke, Mohsin Hamid’s deftly conceived first novel, immediately marked him as an uncommonly gifted and ambitious young literary talent to watch when it was published in 2000. It tells the story of Daru Shezad, who, fired from his banking job in Lahore, begins a decline that plummets the length of Hamid’s sharply drawn, subversive tale. Fast-paced and unexpected, Moth Smoke was ahead of its time in portraying a contemporary Pakistan far more vivid and complex than the exoticized images of South Asia then familiar to the West.

After the death of his beloved wife, after the loss of his advertising business to his once-trusted partner, after bankruptcy forced him from his home, Alan Christoffersen is a broken man. Leaving everything he knows, he sets out on an extraordinary cross-country journey; with only the pack on his back, he is walking from Seattle to Key West - the end of the map. Along the way, Alan begins to heal, meeting people who teach him lessons about love, sacrifice, and forgiveness. But in St. Louis, Alan faces another life-changing crisis, and now the journey is in jeopardy.

Sent into exile once more, Don Rodrigo de Vivar has just Will Redbeard and two warriors for companions. Over the next years, he creates the legend of El Cid, defeating enemy after enemy. Fighting overwhelming odds, he succeeds every time until, at last, he has his fiefdom of Valencia. This is the final chronicle in the series and details the last 18 years of the life of the man known as El Cid. Although this is the last in the series, it is a standalone book. Forget the film and listen to the reality of the man who was the greatest knight of his age - some would say, any age!

Bertrand a une vie tout à fait normale avec sa famille. Homme travaillant et dévoué, il se surmène dans le but d'assurer un avenir de qualité à sa femme et à ses enfants, qu'il n'aura pas le temps de voir devenir adultes. Tous ses efforts le dirigent, malgré lui, bien loin de ses rêves et de ses ambitions. Tranquillement, il sombre dans la noirceur. La nuit la plus longue de toute son existence.

The young Mary Cassatt never thought moving to Paris after the Civil War to be an artist was going to be easy, but when, after a decade of work, her submission to the Paris Salon is rejected, Mary’s fierce determination wavers.

Abe Ravelstein is a brilliant professor at a prominent Midwestern university and a man who glories in training the movers and shakers of the political world. He has lived grandly and ferociously - and much beyond his means. His close friend Chick has suggested that he put forth a book of his convictions about the ideas that sustain humankind, or kill it, and much to Ravelstein’s own surprise, he does and becomes a millionaire.

The blood and violence never ends - it only stops long enough for Melena to relax her guard, to think she might actually survive. For the past year, she has worked hard to pick up the pieces of her life. The supernaturals in Fairbanks are tolerating her, the angels are shielding her from her enemies, and she's getting stronger as her body changes into . . . something else. If not for the man she loves being locked away in Purgatory, she might even believe she could be happy.

Was bleibt von uns, wenn alles, was wir kannten, untergeht? Der große Roman über Verlust und Neuanfang. Die Wolken hängen schwer über der Geest, als Ingwer Feddersen, 49, in sein Heimatdorf zurückkehrt. Er hat hier noch etwas gutzumachen. Großmutter Ella ist dabei, ihren Verstand zu verlieren, Großvater Sönke hält in seinem alten Dorfkrug stur die Stellung. Er hat die besten Zeiten hinter sich, genau wie das ganze Dorf. Wann hat dieser Niedergang begonnen? In den 1970ern, als nach der Flurbereinigung erst die Hecken und dann die Vögel verschwanden?

Así define el autor este volumen, en una brillante introducción que sirve también de puesta en perspectiva: los doce relatos que lo componen abarcan varias épocas, desde finales de la década de los sesenta hasta la actualidad, y en ellos se reflejan algunas de sus obsesiones más íntimas, además de su evolución como artista.

Amid an opulent society living under the shadow of war are four muses, women whose bodies were shown in intimate detail, depicted by the charming yet controversial artist Egon Schiele. Adele, his passionate admirer; Gertrude, his sister who survived their blighted childhood but is jealous; his mistress Vally, a poor young woman from a bad background but with steel at her core; and the two, very different, Harms sisters, both of whom vie to become Schiele’s wife. Over the course of little more than a decade, the four women risk everything as they try to hold on to the man they adore.

Based on a true story, Queenie of Norwich is the compelling tale of one remarkable girl's journey to womanhood. Spanning the first half of the 20th century, Queenie's story is one of heartbreak and triumph, love and loss, and the power of family. It is a story of redemption, and how, with grit and determination, anything is possible.

It's 1926. Ernest Hemingway and his wife, Hadley, travel to a villa in the south of France. They swim, play bridge and drink gin. But wherever they go they are accompanied by the glamorous Fife. Fife is Hadley's best friend. She is also Ernest's lover. Over the ensuing decades, Ernest's literary career will blaze a trail, but his marriages will be ignited by passion and deceit. Four extraordinary women will be forced to ask themselves how far they will go to remain his wife....

Born a veritable great lion of God to a devout Jewish family, Saul of Tarsus is raised by his parents to embrace their love of humanity. Dogged by what he perceives as a lack of true faith, he embarks on a journey to save his people from sacrilege. But on the road to Damascus a vision of the resurrected Jesus changes the course of his life. Converting to Christianity, the newly christened Paul transforms from persecutor of blasphemers into apostle to the gentiles, becoming one of the supreme influences on the Catholic Church and the Western world.

Consigliato dal suo psicanalista, Zeno Cosini, il protagonista di questo straordinario romanzo, forse il più grande del Novecento italiano, scrive la storia della propria vita, nella speranza di guarire dal suo disagio esistenziale tramite una sorta di auto psicoanalisi. Dietro la personalità bugiarda, manipolatrice e parassita di Zeno, si nasconde in realtà la crisi stessa dell'uomo moderno che non trova risposte alle sue inquietanti domande sul senso della vita.

First, he led his own uprising. Then he captured a forsaken king. Henry had no intention of taking the crown for himself; it was given to him by popular acclaim. Alas, it didn't take long to realize that that having the kingship was much less rewarding than striving for it. Only three months after his coronation, Henry IV had to face a rebellion led by Richard's disgruntled favorites. Repressive measures led to more discontent. His own supporters turned against him, demanding more than he could give.