by Rumer Godden
BLACK NARCISSUS
Rumer Godden
High in the Himalayas near Darjeeling, the old mountaintop palace shines like a jewel. When it was the General’s ‘harem’, richly dressed ladies wandered the windswept terraces; at night, music floated out over the gorge. Now, the General’s son has bestowed it on an order of nuns, the Sisters of Mary.
Well-intentioned yet misguided, the nuns set about taming the gardens and opening a school and dispensary for the villagers. They are dependent on the local English agent of Empire, Mr Dean; but his charm and insolent candour are disconcerting. And the implacable emptiness of the mountain, the ceaseless winds, exact a toll on the Sisters. When Mr Dean says bluntly, ‘This is no place for a nunnery,’ it is as if he foresees their destiny…
‘A very remarkable novel indeed. One in a thousand’ Observer
THE RIVER
Rumer Godden
‘You can’t stop days or rivers…’
Harriet’s older sister is no longer a playmate, her brother is still a little boy. And the comforting rhythm of her Indian childhood – the sounds of the jute factory, the colourful festivals and the eternal ebb and flow of the river on its journey to the Bay of Bengal – is about to be shattered by a tragic event. Intense, vivid and with a dark undertow, The River is an arresting portrait of three siblings on the cusp of adulthood.
‘The River will make you laugh, make you cry and, in its way, change you for ever’
Julie Myerson
Available in a Virago Modern Classics limited hardback edition.