Titles by Imprint
Category: Fiction
Blue Poppies
By Jonathan FallaIt is 1950. In a remote Tibetan village, on the border with China, Puton, a young woman, crippled and widowed in a terrifying attack, and now seen as an omen of bad luck by the villagers, meets a stranger - a young Scot, Jamie. He is in the village to set up a radio post. Both are lonely and isolated. Puton is scared of the locals and the Chinese; Jamie is homesick. As their attraction for each other grows, Communist China invades Tibet. The villagers must flee to safety, and led by Jamie, and his friend, Nima, a Buddhist monk and herbalist, the caravan tries to dodge the army, led by a vengeful Chinese commander. The villagers' epic journey, exhilarating and appalling by turns, is an adventure both dangerous and harrowing, with an ending few would expect in this vital rush against time.
Throughout the book there are echoes of Chaucer, well crafted snapshots of Tibetan life, and detailed cameos of exhausted villagers torn between their need to survive and the love for their country and one another. But the true romantic vision in the book is that of an inquisitive stranger in a foreign land. Written with a light and sensitive touch, Blue Poppies is a dramatic, fast-moving story that paints a vivid picture of Tibetan life in the late 1940s and early 1950. Although charged with emotion, it is a thoughtful and unsentimental portrayal of the country.
Key Features
An entrancing portrayal of the will to survive played out across one of the most astonishing landscapes on earth by award-winning writer, Jonathan Falla.
Reviews
One of the main aspects of Blue Poppies is Falla’s refusal to bow to Hollywood-sponsored clichés. Far from being the baby-eating Commies of popular imagination, the Chinese here are shown as tough but not unnecessarily cruel, preferring to win over the conquered with an open hand rather than a clenched fist … Falla is a fine and unflowery writer who delivers a punchy plot free of misty-eyed sentiment, yet [Blue Poppies] is crowned by one of the year's saddest endings.
Sunday Herald
Most authors appear to live on a very small planet; Jo Falla's world is a phenomenally big place. His vivid and authoritative fiction offers us the chance to experience – from the inside – life beyond Western frontiers, beyond Western preconceptions. In his company, we cease to be newspaper-skimmers or camera-toting tourists, and go straight to the heart of cultures that are exhilaratingly, sometimes frighteningly different from our own.
Michel Faber, author of Under the Skin
A delightful debut novel … in what is at times a very dark and harrowing tale, Falla manages to enchant with his characters and to allow you to associate with their peculiarities. Jonathan Falla makes this a bewitching read which stirs up a multitude of emotions from love and longing to anger and disgust. You can’t help but support this fine novel’s characters in their long journey to freedom.
The List
About the Author
About Jonathan Falla
Jo Falla grew up in the south of England, and now lives in Fife. He works as a nurse and is an award-winning dramatist. For many years he worked abroad and headed medical teams during famine, civil war and refugee crises in Sudan and Nepal.All Titles by Jonathan Falla
Jonathan Falla has also written:
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