The Welsh Girl

Peter Ho Davies

From Shelf: R&J 2008

The acclaimed first novel from one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists 2003, a powerful tale of love, war and divided loyalties

Longlisted for the Man Booker PrizeA Richard & Judy Book Club choice'A beautiful, ambitious novel . . . Emotionally resonant and perfectly rendered, I believed in every character, every sheep, every last blade of grass.' - Ann PatchettIn 1944, a German Jewish refugee is sent to Wales to interview Rudolf Hess; in Snowdonia, a seventeen-year-old girl, the daughter of a fiercely nationalistic shepherd, dreams of the bright lights of an English city; and in a nearby POW camp, a German soldier struggles to reconcile his surrender with his sense of honour. As their lives intersect, all three will come to question where they belong and where their loyalties lie. Peter Ho Davies's thought-provoking and profoundly moving first novel traces a perilous wartime romance as it explores the bonds of love and duty that hold us to family, country, and ultimately our fellow man. Vividly rooted in history and landscape, THE WELSH GIRL reminds us anew of the pervasive presence of the past, and the startling intimacy of the foreign.