Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

"Ambitious, outrageous, poignant, sleep-disturbing, Birdsong is not a perfect novel - just a great one."

Simon Schama. New Yorker

"One of the finest novels of the last 40 years."

Brian Masters, Mail on Sunday

Set before and during the great war, Birdsong captures the drama of that era on both a national and a personal scale. It is the story of Stephen, a young Englishman, who arrives in Amiens in 1910. His life goes through a series of traumatic experiences, from the clandestine love affair that tears apart the family with whom he lives, to the unprecedented experiences of the war itself.

Readers who are entranced by sweeping historical sagas will devour Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks' drama set during the first world war.

The book's hero, a 20-year-old Englishman named Stephen Wraysford, finds his true love on a trip to Amiens in 1910. Unfortunately, she's already married, the wife of a wealthy textile baron. Wrayford convinces her to leave a life of passionless comfort to be at his side, but things do not turn out according to plan. Wraysford is haunted by this doomed affair and carries it with him into the trenches of the war.

Birdsong derives most of its power from its descriptions of mud and blood, and Wraysford's attempt to retain a scrap of humanity while surrounded by it. There is a simultaneous description of his present-day granddaughter's quest to read his diaries, which is designed to give some sense of perspective; this device is only somewhat successful. Nevertheless, Birdsong is a rewarding read, an unflinching war story and a touching romance.

The novel came 13th in a 2003 BBC survey called the Big Read which aimed to find Britain's favourite book.

About the Author

Sebastian Faulks was born on 20 April 1953 and educated at Wellington College and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He was the first literary editor of The Independent and became deputy editor of the Independent on Sunday before leaving in 1991 to concentrate on writing. He has been a columnist for The Guardian (1992-8) and the Evening Standard (1997-9). He continues to contribute articles and reviews to a number of newspapers and magazines. He wrote and presented the Channel 4 Television series, Churchill's Secret Army, which was broadcast in 1999.

Though his best known work is the bestselling Birdsong (1993), The Fatal Englishman: Three Short Lives is a multiple biography of the lives of the artist Christopher Wood, airman Richard Hillary and spy Jeremy Wolfenden. His fifth novel, Charlotte Gray (1998), completes the loose trilogy of books about France with an account of the adventures of a young Scottish woman who becomes involved with the French resistance during the Second World War. A film adaptation of the novel, starring Cate Blanchett, was first screened in 2002. His next novel, On Green Dolphin Street (2001), is a love story set against the backdrop of the Cold War. Human Traces, a book set in the 19th century and telling the tale of two friends who set up a pioneering asylum, was published in 2005. Engleby was published in 2007.

Faulks on Fiction is a compelling and personal look at the British novel through its greatest characters - the heroes, lovers, snobs and villains - and is also a major BBC series. Click on the video link to see Faulks interviewing contemporary writers on characters in fiction.



Sebastian Faulks lives with his wife and three children in London. He was awarded the CBE in 2002.

Find out more by clicking on the link below.

Find out more about Sebastian Faulks here...

Click on the link to hear Faulks discussing Birdsong on the BBC World Service's World Book Club.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/133_wbc_archive_new/page3.shtml

The BBC produced a TV version of the novel in early 2012. Here's the trailer...