Rose Tremain - Hazafelé (2021)

From the author of the award-winning novels The Gustav Sonata and The Islands of Grace

In the early 2000s, after a series of factory closures and the death of his wife, Lev went from Eastern Europe to London, looking for a job that would support his mother and daughter. He finds a room for rent in the house of an Irish plumber, Christy, who has also lost his family. Lev feels the environment is hostile, he sees the British as strange - but maybe he can find a friend in the person of Christy?

Hidden in Hazapele, in relation to the everyday difficulties of being an emigrant, he asks the big questions: where do we really belong? What is really important in life? Rose Tremain is a brilliantly sophisticated prose writer.

Orange Broadband Award

"Rose Tremain doesn't create fantasy worlds, she creates alternate realities." (New York Times)

"Tremain's keen eye for the shallow selfishness of moneyed Londoners - a detailed, lively book." (Guardians)

"Incredibly human." (Sunday Telegraph)

"Homeward's themes encompass loss, isolation, grief and melancholy... As always, Tremain delivers with delightful, crackling precision." (Observer)