NATIONAL BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE’S JOHN LEONARD AWARD • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARDNAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • San Francisco Chronicle • New York • Chicago Tribune • Kansas City Star • GQ • NPR • Christian Science Monitor • Cleveland Plain … Star • GQ • NPR • Christian Science Monitor • Cleveland Plain Dealer
In a small rural village in Chechnya, eight-year-old Havaa watches from the woods as Russian soldiers abduct her father in the middle of the night and then set fire to her home. When their lifelong neighbor Akhmed finds Havaa hiding in the forest with a strange blue suitcase, he makes a decision that will forever change their lives. He will seek refuge at the abandoned hospital where the sole remaining doctor, Sonja Rabina, treats the wounded.
For Sonja, the arrival of Akhmed and Havaa is an unwelcome surprise. Weary and overburdened, she has no desire to take on additional risk and responsibility. But over the course of five extraordinary days, Sonja’s world will shift on its axis and reveal the intricate pattern of connections that weaves together the pasts of these three unlikely companions and unexpectedly decides their fate. A story of the transcendent power of love in wartime, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena is a work of sweeping breadth, profound compassion, and lasting significance.
Now with Extra Libris material, including a reader’s guide and bonus content from the author.
Praise for A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
“Here, in fresh, graceful prose, is a profound story that dares to be as tender as it is ghastly, a story about desperate lives in a remote land that will quickly seem impossibly close and important. . . . I haven’t been so overwhelmed by a novel in years. At the risk of raising your expectations too high, I have to say you simply must read this book.”—Ron Charles, Washington Post
“Extraordinary . . . a 21st century War and Peace . . . Marra seems to derive his astral calm in the face of catastrophe directly from Tolstoy.”—Madison Smartt Bell, New York Times Book Review
“Ambitious and intellectually restless . . . [Marra is] a lover not a fighter, a prose writer who resembles the Joseph Heller of Catch-22 and the Jonathan Safran Foer of Everything Is Illuminated.”—Dwight Garner, New York Times
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One of the best books I have ever read. The poetic descriptions encircle the large cast of characters, each revealed to the marrow of the bone. The kernel of hope is buried deeply in the tragic bleak lives of those trying to survive. Very informative with regard to the history of Chechnya and the human spirit.
Amazing.
What is it like to live in a war zone? Chechnya is a place I have never been. I loved the characters, wanted them all to survive. I wondered about the limits of friendship, effects of trauma, and how I would survive a war.
One of my all-time favorites. So beautifully written. A classic.
Outstanding novel
Loved this book!
Loved this book!
There’s a lot in A Constellation of Vital Phenomena that is wonderful — Marra’s elegant writing, the unwinding story structure, and the omniscient narrator who pops in when something’s happening to tell you what happens in the future, e.g. “she would live to be 110.”
Still, I had trouble embracing this book, mainly because in many places the portrait of Chechnya didn’t ring true for me — descriptions of drunken soldiers, meals of kasha, or markets filled with stolen goods sometimes read like cliches batted around at expat dinner parties. The result, for me, was a comprised, less credible story.