"Hilarious, beautiful and compassionate ...exquisitely
rendered."--World Literature Today "A sweet, sad, sunny meditation
on birds and music and the gentle approach of death." -- John
Rockwell, former New York Times arts critic and editor and founding
director of Lincoln Center Festival "A deeply compassionate
meditation on one man's life and its impending finality. Amusingly
digressive and philosophically rich ...Gaponenko, at just
thirty-four, remains a serious young talent and someone to keep an
eye out for in the coming years."--Rain Taxi "A book like a
fantastic party, as unshakeable as a child's faith...Astonishes to
the very end."--Neue Zurcher Zeitung "With layers of inventive
language, vividly drawn characters, history, music, birds, love,
loneliness, and wisdom, this is a brilliant book, rich and
satisfying as a Viennese torte."--Sy Montgomery, author of
Birdology "A celebration of creation and all its wonders, full of
the joy of life."--Der Spiegel "A work of unbridled imagination.
Marjana Gaponenko is exuberantly talented, and here she pulls out
all the stops."--Die Welt "A panorama of twentieth century Central
European history." --Citation for the 2013 Adelbert von Chamisso
Prize In this rollicking novel, 96-year-old ornithologist Luka
Levadski foregoes treatment for lung cancer and moves from Ukraine
to Vienna to make a grand exit in a luxury suite at the Hotel
Imperial. He reflects on his past while indulging in Viennese cakes
and savoring music in a gilded concert hall. Levadski was born in
1914, the same year that Martha -- the last of the now-extinct
passenger pigeons -- died. Levadski himself has an acute sense of
being the last of a species. He may have devoted much of his
existence to studying birds, but now he befriends a hotel butler
and another elderly guest, who also doesn't have much time left, to
share in the lively escapades of his final days. This gloriously
written tale, in which Levadski feels "his heart pounding at the
portals of his brain," mixes piquant wit with lofty musings about
life, friendship, aging and death. Marjana Gaponenko was born in
1981 in Odessa, Ukraine. She fell in love with the German language
as a young girl, and began writing in German when she was sixteen.
She now lives in Vienna and Mainz.
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