The Great Fire

A Novel

By: Shirley Hazzard

Narrated by: Virginia Leishman

National Book Award, Fiction, 2003

This mesmerizing, poetic novel has earned universal acclaim. Set against the beautiful but tragic landscape of post-World War II Asia, The Great Fire tells a sweeping tale of the search for new beginnings in a world ravaged by tragedy.

Thirty-two-year-old war hero Aldred Leith is in Japan to survey the Hiroshima devastation. His close friend and fellow veteran Peter Exley prosecutes Japanese war criminals in Hong Kong. Striving to rebuild lives shattered by war, both men reach critical turning points. Leith falls in love with a precocious and charming 17-year-old girl, while Exley faces a decision that will forever alter his path.

Author Shirley Hazzard's first novel in more than 20 years, The Great Fire is an elegant and beautifully crafted story that resonates long past the final word.

©2003 by Shirley Hazzard (P)2004 by Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

"What blows away all cobwebs is the extraordinary quality of the writing, gravely beautiful and utterly attentive...[a] marvelous book." (The Observer)
"Hazzard combines emotion on a scale we associate with 19th century novels with language that has the freedom and lucid precision of early 20th century modernism." (Salon.com)
"The purity of her sentences, each one resonant with implication, create an effortless flow. This is a quiet book, but one that carries portents well beyond its time and place, suggesting the disquieting state of our current world." (Publishers Weekly)

A Masterpiece

Quite simply, the loveliest most profound, most gorgeously written book I’ve read in quite some time. Shirley Hazzard’s prose is as good as it gets. Heartbreaking and marvelous.

what war does

How does one recover from the horrors of war and cope with the sense of loss and change both in oneself, in others and in the world in the aftermath is the difficult theme that this book tackles so well. It's a challenging book emotionally and an extraordinary chronicle of the social changes that the war had especially for England--the loss of the empire and the breakdown of the class system. But it's also a book about people and the various ways in which some suceeded and some failed in trying to get back to their lives. It's beautifully written--has the feeling of being from another era and yet it's not too hard to see that it speaks to the present as well. Patience is rewarded with this one.

lovely writing, evocative descriptions

though initially I thought this book would be slow going, I was ultimately moved by hazzard's richly detailed and thoughtful insights into human behaviors, both large and small. perhaps not everyone's cup of tea, but for me it was a pleasure. note: I am surprised that there is no audio book for hazzard's best known work, the transit of Venus

A great book

Very well written, good plot, great characterization, this is one I'll come back to read again in the future.

An Epic Love Story

Beautifully written. Shirley Hazzard is a master storyteller. The narrator is wonderful and adds to the pleasure of reading this book.