Pursued from country to country by Stalin's GPU agents, Leon Trotsky finds refuge in Mexico City in 1937. There he encounters the fire and splendor of the artist Frida Kahlo who, with her husband Diego Rivera, welcomes Trotsky and his wife Natalia into their home, the Casa Azul. Meaghan Delahunt's breathtaking first novel explores those extraordinary years in Mexico, but also spreads before the reader a panorama of Russian history, revolution, and upheaval throughout the first half of the twentieth century. We hear from Stalin's desolate young wife, and Trotsky's Ukrainian Jewish father, baffled by the dissolution of his own estate and the rise of his son, and from Trotsky himself, still smarting from his brief love affair with the mesmerizing Frida. Their voices mingle with the tales of the lesser known who, in their way, have also created history: the Mexican artist who foretells Trotsky's death; a Bolshevik engineer surviving the chill of the Stalinist regime; and the bodyguard who is unable to prevent Trotsky's assassination. In the Casa Azul insightfully examines politics and art, as well as disillusionment and loss in the service of high ideals. This is a remarkable debut, a work of deep understanding and stunning literary artistry.

In the Casa Azul: A Novel of Revolution and Betrayal

Literature & Fiction

Delahunt, Meaghan

British & Irish

St.Martin's Press

This breathtaking first novel explores Leon Trotsky and his wife's years of Mexican exile in the home of Frida Kahlo and her husband Diego Rivera. Mingled with the voices of Stalin's desolate young wife and that of Trotsky himself are the tales of the lesser known who have also created history--the Mexican artist who foretells Trotsky's death; a Bolshevik engineer surviving the chill of the Stalinist regime; the bodyguard who is unable to prevent the assassination. Together, the stories reveal the panorama of Russian history, revolution, and upheaval in the twentieth century.

Literary

Picador

In the blue house

In the Blue House

BLOOMSBURY

Françoise, an Australian photographer, travels to Bhopal in India, where 20 years earlier a gas leak killed thousands. There she meets Naga, a Tibetan refugee whose family died in the disaster, and Arkay, a Scottish traveler battling addiction, who has found solace in Buddhism. As a testament to their time together Françoise assembles photographs from their lives into an album, the Red Book. The photographs tell their stories of love, struggle and transformation—pointing to the people they have been and who they will become. The three narrators'beautifully realized voices show how lives entwine and split apart, and the story captures the irresistible lure of India for outsiders, the promise of its spirituality, and its layered history.

The Red Book

Granta UK

He disappeared. That's all she really knew. In search of her father Andreas, whom she has never met, Lena travels with her small son from Australia to Greece. On the island of Naxos she finds him, a wary, tormented man living in self-imposed exile and haunted by what happened to him under the rule of the Colonels in the 1960s. Slowly Lena unlocks the secrets of her father's past, and in getting to know him begins to understand the dark realities of contemporary Greek history. To the Island is a book about the impact of larger political events on the lives of ordinary people, and how political and personal betrayals reverberate across generations, beautifully evoking the currents and cross-currents between individuals, within families and in broader society. And in Lena and Andreas's stories, it shows how difficult it is to confront our personal and collective pasts - and the terrible consequences of being unable to do so.

To the Island

Contemporary

Granta Books

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