Justine

Rediscover one of the twentieth century's greatest romances: this seductive tale of four tangled lovers in wartime Egypt, introduced by André Aciman (Call Me By Your Name and Find Me), is 'wonderful' (Elif Shafak) I remembered Justine saying harshly as she lay in bed: 'We use each other like axes to cut down the ones we really love'. Alexandria: the great winepress of love. Trams, palm trees, and watermelon stalls lie honey-bathed in sunlight; in darkened bedrooms, sweaty lovers unfurl. But in a world trembling on the brink of war, passion and death are inextricable. When a penniless schoolteacher begins an affair with Justine - a married Egyptian lady of unparalleled glamour - their partners are sucked into a whirlpool of jealousy and violence. One of the world's greatest romances, rich in political and sexual intrigue, Lawrence Durrell's scandalous 'investigation of modern love' set the world alight in 1957 and - as André Aciman reveals - it burns just as brightly today. What Readers Are Saying: 'Sometimes you discover a new author and know you're going to be friends for life ... One of the most beautiful books I've ever read.' 'I absolutely adored this book ... I felt sucked into it with an amazing force by the beauty of the words ... The backdrop of 1930s Egypt's literary circles and bohemian relationships is mesmerising ... Breathtaking.' 'Shimmering and dreamlike ... One of the most beautifully written books I've read ... All of life is here; can't wait for the next one.' 'Lush, brutal, beautiful ... Durrell captured a place and time that will never exist again.' 'What makes this novel truly spectacular is the language, the episodic jumps in time, the lush lyricism, and how Durrell so deftly manages to tie this all into both the city of Alexandria and the themes of passion, love, and jealousy. ' What The Critics Said: 'A masterpiece.'Guardian 'One of the great works of English fiction.' Times 'Dazzlingly exuberant ... Reckless ... Superb.' Observer 'Brave and brazen ... Lush and grandiose.'Independent 'Legendary ... Casts a spell ... Reader, watch out!' Guardian 'Lushly beautiful ... One of the most important works of our time.'NYTBR

Lawrence Durrell was a British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer. Born in 1912 in India to British colonial parents, he was sent to school in England and later moved to Corfu with his family - a period which his brother Gerald fictionalised in My Family and Other Animals- later filmed as The Durrells in Corfu - and which he himself described in Prospero's Cell. The first of Durrell's island books, this was followed by Reflections on a Marine Venus on Rhodes; Bitter Lemons, on Cyprus, which won the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize; and, later, The Greek Islands. Durrell's first major novel, The Black Book, was published in 1938 in Paris, where he befriended Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin - and it was praised by T. S. Eliot, who published his poetry in 1943. A wartime sojourn in Egypt inspired his bestselling masterpiece, The Alexandria Quartet (Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive and Clea) which he completed in his new home in Southern France, where in 1974 he began The Avignon Quintet. When he died in 1990, Durrell was one of the most celebrated writers in British history.