Awards
2002 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
Winner of the 2002 Orange Prize
Finalist for the 2001 National Book Critics Circle Award
From Powells.com
The government of a small South American country holds a birthday party for the
head of Japan's leading electronics manufacturer, hoping to attract its business.
Mr. Hosokawa, they know, can't resist the opportunity of a private performance
by the world's leading soprano, Roxanne Coss. But it's not Hosokawa or Coss the
terrorists want. The guerrillas who raid the party are after the country's president.
Unfortunately, they quickly learn that he skipped the soiree to watch his favorite
soap opera. Upon successfully storming the building, the naïve rebels find their
kidnapping attempt foiled, and they don't know what to do. As Ann
Patchett's new novel opens, fifty-seven men, eighteen terrorists, and one
remarkable opera singer begin their new life behind the closed doors of the vice
presidential mansion. Inspired by the four-month-long, 1996 Peruvian hostage crisis,
Bel Canto "is ninety-eight percent fiction," the author says. Roxane Coss
was her idea.
"Soon enough," Patchett writes, "the days were divided into three states: the
anticipation of her singing, the pleasure of her singing, and the reflection
on her singing." The New Yorker raved, "Patchett's tragicomic novel
a fantasia of guns and Puccini and Red Cross negotiations invokes the
glorious, unreliable promises of art, politics and love. Against this grand
backdrop, the smallest gestures bloom with meaning." As Laura Miller concluded
in a review for Salon.com, "Patchett makes it work, completely." Dave, Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Review
"There are quite a few improbable aspects to Bel Canto, but the handful of times when I found my head popping above the surface of Patchett's novel to catch a quick lungful of realism is it really possible that among a group of 57 assorted men there wouldn't be one opera hater or homosexual? I was promptly sucked back under the surface by the book's bewitching undertow. This is a story of passionate, doomed love; of the glory of art; of the triumph of our shared humanity over the forces that divide us, and a couple of other unbearably cheesy themes, and yet Patchett makes it work, completely." Laura Miller, Salon.com (click here to read the entire Salon.com review)
Synopsis
Blissfully Romantic .A strange, terrific, spellcasting story. San Francisco Chronicle
Bel Canto should be on the list of every literate music lover. The story is riveting, the participants breathe and feel and are alive, and throughout this elegantly-told novel, music pours forth so splendidly that the reader hears it and is overwhelmed by its beauty. Lloyd Moss, WXQR
Glorious. The New Yorker
Ann Pratchett s award winning, New York Times bestselling Bel Canto balances themes of love and crisis as disparate characters learn that music is their only common language. As in Patchett s other novels, including Truth & Beautyand The Magician s Assistant, the author 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.
"
Synopsis
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 doing what she does best. . . . What gives this novel its power is Patchett's flair for sketching the subtleties of her characters' behavior."-New York Times Book Review
Freshman Common Book: NYU/Steinhardt School, Converse College, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Synopsis
Now a major motion picture starring Julianne Moore and Ken Watanabe.
"Blissfully Romantic....A strange, terrific, spellcasting story." -- San Francisco Chronicle
"Bel Canto...should be on the list of every literate music lover. The story is riveting, the participants breathe and feel and are alive, and throughout this elegantly-told novel, music pours forth so splendidly that the reader hears it and is overwhelmed by its beauty." --Lloyd Moss, WXQR
"Glorious." --The New Yorker
Ann Patchett's award winning, New York Times bestselling Bel Canto balances themes of love and crisis as disparate characters learn that music is their only common language. As in Patchett's other novels, including Truth & Beauty and The Magician's Assistant, the author'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.
Synopsis
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.
Synopsis
“Blissfully Romantic….A strange, terrific, spellcasting story.” —
San Francisco Chronicle“Bel Canto…should be on the list of every literate music lover. The story is riveting, the participants breathe and feel and are alive, and throughout this elegantly-told novel, music pours forth so splendidly that the reader hears it and is overwhelmed by its beauty.” —Lloyd Moss, WXQR
“Glorious.” —The New Yorker
Ann Pratchetts award winning, New York Times bestselling Bel Canto balances themes of love and crisis as disparate characters learn that music is their only common language. As in Patchetts other novels, including Truth & Beauty and The Magicians Assistant, the authors 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.
About the Author
Ann Patchett is the author of six novels and three works of nonfiction. She is the winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award, England's Orange Prize, and the Book Sense Book of the Year, and was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages. She is the co-owner of Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee, where she lives with her husband, Karl, and their dog, Sparky.