A STUDENT falls ills with AIDS and to pass the time his friend suggests they write a story together marked by the events, one a year, of the twentieth century.
The horrible progression of the disease is matched by the atrocities of history.
A tourist attends a strange concert in a broken down auditorium and, greatly affected, tracks the discordant violinist back to his place of work.
In a chillingly effective
story a prison warder informs a mother of her son's execution.
A grandmother's memories, too often repeated, help create a magical mirror.
These four imaginative, direct and sympathetic stories, that were written 10 years before the Man Booker Prize-winning The Life of Pi, show the early promise of the author who today lives in Canada.
Frances Perkins
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