Red Heaven (novel)
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 | |
| Author | Nicolas Rothwell |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Text Publishing |
Publication date | 3 August 2021 |
| Publication place | Australia |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 378 pp. |
| Awards | 2022 Prime Minister's Literary Awards — Fiction, winner |
| ISBN | 9781922458049 |
Red Heaven is a 2021 novel by the Australian author Nicolas Rothwell.[1]
It was the winner of the 2022 Prime Minister's Literary Awards for Fiction.[2]
The unnamed boy at the centre of this novel is raised by two aunts in Europe: Serghiana, who is the daughter of a Soviet general in the communist regime who goes on to work as a film producer in California; Madame Ady, who is a fashionable Viennese woman married to a famous conductor. How these two conflicting aunts try to influence the boy will have a profound effect on him for the rest of his life.
Notes
- Dedication: 'In memory of NS, brother spirit'
- Epigraph: "The morning cometh, and also the night: if ye will inquire, inquire ye: return, come."
Critical reception
In Australian Book Review reviewer Paul Giles noted: "Abjuring the idea of the novel as a mere social construction, Red Heaven attempts instead to resuscitate ‘ghosts’ buried deep within the narrator’s psyche." The reviewer concluded that the novel "is a work of genuine intellectual exploration, original and provocative on its own hermetic terms."[3]