Lilac and Flag: An Old Wives' Tale of a City

by John Berger

Overview

As Dickens and Balzac did for their time, so John Berger does for ours, rendering the movement of a people and the passing of a way of life in his masterwork, the Into Their Labours trilogy. With Lilac and Flag, the Alpine village of the two earlier volumes has been forsaken for the mythic city of Troy. Here, amidst the shantytowns, factories, and opulent hotels, fading heritages and steadfast dreams, the children and grandchildren of rural peasants pursue meager livings as best they can. And here, two young lovers embark upon a passionate, desperate journey of love and survival and find transcending hope both for themselves and for us as their witnesses.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307794277
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/13/2011
Series:	Into Their Labours Series , #3
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	188
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

John Berger was born in London in 1926. He is well known for his novels and stories as well as for his works of nonfiction, including several volumes of art criticism. His first novel, A Painter of Our Time, was published in 1958, and since then his books have included Ways of Seeing, the fiction trilogy Into Their Labours, and the novel G., which won the Booker Prize in 1972. In 1962 he left Britain permanently, and lived in a small village in the French Alps. He died in 2017.

What People are Saying About This

Ariel Dorfman

A miraculous work of art.

Editorial Reviews

A magnificent trilogy. [Into Their Labours] is moving in an almost unbearable way."

— Anthony Burgess

As Dickens and Balzac did for their time, so, John Berger does for ours, rendering the movement of a people and the passing of a way of life in his masterwork, the Into Their Labours trilogy. With Lilac and Flag, the Alpine village of the two earlier volumes has been forsaken for the mythic city of Troy. Here, amidst the shantytowns, factories, and opulent hotels, fading heritages and steadfast dreams, the children and grandchildren of rural peasants pursue meager livings as best they can. And here, two young lovers embark upon a passionate, desperate journey of love and survival and find transcending hope both for themselves and for us as their witnesses.

"Remarkable.... Like all great novelists, all great people, [John Berger] guides his characters and his readers tenderly and with intimate humor. There is the voice of Isaiah and Jeremiah in this book, but also the compassion of a New Testament."

— Michael Ondaatje

From the Publisher