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Red Heaven (novel)

Red Heaven is a 2021 novel by the Australian author Nicolas Rothwell.

It was the winner of the 2022 Prime Minister's Literary Awards for Fiction.

Synopsis

The unnamed boy at the centre of this novel is raised by two aunts in Europe: Serghiana, who is the daughter of a Soviet general in the communist regime who goes on to work as a film producer in California; Madame Ady, who is a fashionable Viennese woman married to a famous conductor. How these two conflicting aunts try to influence the boy will have a profound effect on him for the rest of his life.

Notes

  • Dedication: 'In memory of NS, brother spirit'
  • Epigraph: "The morning cometh, and also the night: if ye will inquire, inquire ye: return, come."

Critical reception

In Australian Book Review reviewer Paul Giles noted: "Abjuring the idea of the novel as a mere social construction, Red Heaven attempts instead to resuscitate ‘ghosts’ buried deep within the narrator’s psyche." The reviewer concluded that the novel "is a work of genuine intellectual exploration, original and provocative on its own hermetic terms."

Awards

See also

References