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The Welsh Girl book cover
The Welsh Girl
2007
First Published
3.45
Average Rating
352
Number of Pages

From the acclaimed writer Peter Ho Davies comes an engrossing wartime love story set in the stunning landscape of North Wales during the final, harrowing months of World War II. Young Esther Evans has lived her whole life within the confines of her remote mountain village. The daughter of a fiercely nationalistic sheep farmer, Esther yearns for a taste of the wider world that reaches her only through broadcasts on the BBC. Then, in the wake of D-day, the world comes to her in the form of a German POW camp set up on the outskirts of Esther's village. The arrival of the Germans in the camp is a source of intense curiosity in the local pub, where Esther pulls pints for both her neighbors and the unwelcome British guards. One summer evening she follows a group of schoolboys to the camp boundary. As the boys heckle the prisoners across the barbed wire fence, one soldier seems to stand apart. He is Karsten Simmering, a German corporal, only eighteen, a young man of tormented conscience struggling to maintain his honor and humanity. To Esther's astonishment, Karsten calls out to her. These two young people from worlds apart will be drawn into a perilous romance that calls into personal question the meaning of love, family, loyalty, and national identity. The consequences of their relationship resonate through the lives of a vividly imagined cast of characters: the drunken BBC comedian who befriends Esther, Esther's stubborn father, and the resentful young British "evacuee" who lives on the farm-even the German-Jewish interrogator investigating the most notorious German prisoner in Wales, Rudolf Hess. Peter Ho Davies has been hailed for his "all-encompassing empathy that is without borders" (Elle). That trancendent compassion shines through The Welsh Girl, a novel that is both thought-provoking and emotionally enthralling.

Avg Rating
3.45
Number of Ratings
4,671
5 STARS
12%
4 STARS
37%
3 STARS
37%
2 STARS
12%
1 STARS
3%
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Author

Peter Ho Davies
Peter Ho Davies
Author · 6 books

Peter Ho Davies is a contemporary British writer of Welsh and Chinese descent. He was born and raised in Coventry. Davies studied physics at Manchester University then English at Cambridge University. In 1992 he moved to the United States as a professor of creative writing. He has taught at the University of Oregon and Emory University and is now on the faculty of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He has published two collections of short fiction, The Ugliest House in the World (1998) and Equal Love (2000). His first novel, The Welsh Girl came out in 2007. Davies is a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.

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