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Distant Music: A Novel

A love affair reoccurs across six centuries in this novel set in Portugal. The story begins in 1429 on Madeira, an island consumed by a fire that has blazed for seven years. A young peasant girl, Esperanca, meets Emanuel, a Jewish boy on shore from a Portuguese sailing ship. The courtship blossoms when he teaches her to read, but they know they must separate when the ship leaves. From that first meeting and parting others flow across the centuries: each life is short and the couple faces peril, tenderness, and horror. What survives is love, the ache of longing, the awareness of something lost, the immensity of distance, and the fragility of human bonds.

  • Format
  • hardcover
  • Pages
  • 368
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 9781571310408
  • Genres
  • portugal, fiction
  • Release date
  • 2003