Vivien Kovacs, a sensitive, bookish girl grows up sealed off from the world by her timid Hungarian refugee parents, who conceal the details of their history and shy away from any encounter with the outside world. She learns how to navigate British society from an eccentric cast of neighbors — including a fading ballerina, a cartoonist, and a sad woman who wanders the city and teaches Vivien to be beautiful. She loses herself in books and reinvents herself according to her favorite characters, but it is through clothes that she ultimately defines herself.
Against her father’s wishes, she forges a relationship with her uncle, a notorious criminal and slum landlord, who, in his old age, wants to share his life story. As he exposes the truth about her family’s past Vivien learns how to be comfortable in her own skin and how to be alive in the world.
Grant is a spectacularly humanizing writer whose morally complex characters explore the line between selfishness and self-preservation.
Hamnet
An American Marriage - 2019 Winner
Home Fire - 2018 Winner
The Power - 2017 Winner
The Glorious Heresies - 2016 Winner
How to be both - 2015 Winner
A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing - 2014 Winner
May We Be Forgiven - 2013 Winner
The Song of Achilles - 2012 Winner
The Tiger's Wife - 2011 Winner
The Lacuna - 2010 Winner
Home - 2009 Winner
The Road Home - 2008 Winner
Half of a Yellow Sun - 2007 Winner
On Beauty - 2006 Winner
We Need to Talk About Kevin - 2005 Winner
Small Island - 2004 Winner
Property - 2003 Winner
Bel Canto - 2002 Winner
The Idea of Perfection - 2001 Winner
When I Lived in Modern Times - 2000 Winner
A Crime in the Neighborhood - 1999 Winner
Larry’s Party - 1998 Winner
Fugitive Pieces - 1997 Winner
A Spell of Winter - 1996 Winner
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