Marina Warner interweaves myth and legend, history and politics, to create a kaleidoscopic fable about exile and loss

The Lost Father
Written by Marina Warner
- Shortlisted
- The Booker Prize 1988
- Published by Chatto & Windus
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Marina Warner’s imaginary memoir of an Italian family, which in turn explores the passions and prejudices of the narrator’s imagination
The narrator’s story of her search for her own and her family’s identity. Davide Pittagora, her grandfather, died from a bullet wound and his ‘duel’ is the pivot on which this independent, modern woman turns an imaginary memoir of her mother’s family. As she is drawn into her own invention, the story becomes distorted and her family are forced to ‘re-invent’ the absent Davide.
Marina Warner
Marina Warner is a pioneer in the academic study of myth, but in 1985 she was prominent for her provocative books reappraising the likes of the Virgin Mary and Joan of Arc as feminist figures
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