{"product_id":"9781921961618","title":"My Beautiful Enemy","description":"\u003cp\u003eShortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, 2014.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA heartbreaking story of love and loss set against the backdrop of a Japanese internment camp in Victoria during WW2.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eArthur Wheeler is haunted by his infatuation with a Japanese youth he encountered in the enemy alien camp where he worked as a guard during WW2. Abandoning his wife and baby son, Arthur sets out on a doomed mission to rescue his lover from forced deportation back to Japan, a country in ruins.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThus begins the secret history of a soldier at war with his own sexuality and dangerously at odds with the racism that underpins the crumbling British Empire.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFour decades later Arthur is still obsessed with the traumatic events of his youth. He proposes a last reunion with his lost lover, in the hope of laying his ghosts to rest, but this mission too seems doomed to failure.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eLike \u003ci\u003eMerry Christmas Mr Lawrence\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eSnow Falling On Cedars\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eMy Beautiful Enemy\u003c\/i\u003e explores questions of desire and redemption against the background of a savage racial war. In this context, Arthur's private battles against his own nature, and against the conventions of his time, can only end in heartache.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCory Taylor\u003c\/b\u003e is an award-winning screenwriter who has also published short fiction and children's books. Her first novel, \u003ci\u003eMe and Mr Booker\u003c\/i\u003e, won the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Pacific Region). She lives in Brisbane.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e'Taylor has crafted her novel superbly. The pace is measured, and the restraint, particularly in the later stages of the book, lends \u003ci\u003eMy Beautiful Enemy\u003c\/i\u003e its emotional punch...A moving and accomplished novel that explores fascinating untold lives from our past.' \u003ci\u003eSydney Morning Herald\/Age\/Canberra Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e'Black humour is cunningly tangled with moments of sheer emotional devastation; Taylor crafts sentences of such sharpness and insight that I was forced to pause at moments to bask in the prose. \u003ci\u003eMy Beautiful Enemy\u003c\/i\u003e is a heartfelt and beautifully written novel about love and war for readers of exquisitely crafted literary fiction.'\u003ci\u003e Australian Bookseller and Publisher\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e'An almost unbearably beautiful story about longing and secret lives in which grief and joy turn out to be much the same thing.' Robert Dessaix\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e'Longing, desire, fear, confusion and self-delusion are all expressed with finesse and subtlety in a distinctive, memorable voice and assured, elegant prose.' Caroline Baum, Booktopia\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e'This is a beautifully told story of love, longing and the war within.' The Hoopla\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e‘Reminiscent of a Kazuo Ishiguro novel...a love story that is tender and original.' \u003ci\u003eReadings Monthly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Text Publishing Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47157657534704,"sku":"9781921961618","price":15.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781921961618_p0.jpg?v=1763632797","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781921961618","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}