Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award • Winner of the Orange Prize • National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
"Bel Canto is its own universe. A marvel of a book." —Washington Post Book World
New York Times bestselling author Ann Patchett’s spellbinding novel about love and opera, and the unifying ways people learn to communicate across cultural barriers in times of crisis
Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening—until a band of gun-wielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different continents become compatriots, intimate friends, and lovers.
Patchett's lyrical prose and lucid imagination make Bel Canto a captivating story of strength and frailty, love and imprisonment, and an inspiring tale of transcendent romance.
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"This is a story that continues to stay with me, despite having finished it a good eighteen months ago. The slow building of the plots, with the conclusion becoming more inevitable and yet more painful with the turning of each page; the strongly built characters with their individual voices that resonate long after the book is closed; the music that echoes throughout the chapters all combine to make it a masterful creation. I find myself thinking back to specific nights in the vice president's home as if they were my own memories, wondering how and when the tide could have been turned and the outcome changed. I listened to it on CD, which lent a great deal to its reality for me. The different languages and accents came alive in a way that they might not have had I met them on the printed page. Listening to it also forced me to appreciate the beauty of the language without allowing me to feverishly read for plot. I would recommend it without reservation to any lover of literature."
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Katie (5 out of 5 stars)