To the Wedding

The centenary edition, with an introduction by Nadeem Aslam. ‘You have a voice that couldn’t lie. There are voices that can’t lie.’ A blind Greek pedlar listens as a mother and father, estranged for years, travel across Europe to their daughter’s wedding. Ninon is marrying Gino in Italy. She is twenty-three years old and she is dying of AIDS. Fragments of conversations, songs and silence blend in a swirl of vignettes that are both tragic and joyous, erotic and wise. On their wedding day, Ninon takes off her shoes and dances barefoot with Gino as if they will never grow tired, as if their happiness is eternal, as if death will never touch them. To the Wedding is a novel of heartache, of hope and of a love that triumphs over death. ‘One of the greatest and most honest love stories of our time’ Colum McCann ‘No one knows more about the necessity of love than John Berger’ Anne Michaels ‘A masterpiece . . . a novel that will haunt you’ Sunday Telegraph