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The World and All That It Holds

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The World and All That It Holds

By: Aleksandar Hemon
Narrated by: Aleksander Mikic
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About this listen

The epic, cross-continental tale of a love so strong it conquers the Great War, revolution, and even death itself.

As the Archduke Franz Ferdinand arrives in Sarajevo one June day in 1914, Rafael Pinto is busy crushing herbs and grinding tablets behind the counter at the pharmacy he inherited from his father. It’s not quite the life he had expected during his poetry-filled student days in libertine Vienna, but it’s nothing a dash of laudanum, a summer stroll and idle fantasies can’t put in perspective.

And then the world explodes. In the trenches in Galicia, fantasies fall flat. Heroism gets a man killed quickly. War devours all that they have known, and the only thing Pinto has to live for are the attentions of Osman, a fellow soldier, a man of action to complement Pinto’s introspective, poetic soul; a charismatic storyteller and Pinto’s protector and lover.

Together, Pinto and Osman will escape the trenches and find themselves entangled with spies and Bolsheviks. As they travel over mountains and across deserts, from one world to another, all the way to Shanghai, it is Pinto’s love for Osman that will truly survive.

©2023 Aleksandar Hemon (P)2023 Macmillan Audio 20th Century Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction World War I War

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Critic reviews

A staggering work of beauty and brutality (Douglas Stuart, Booker Prize winning author of Shuggie Bain)

A tour de force. Hemon has given us a story of love and war like no other (Kamila Shamsie, author of Home Fire)
A twisting, turning epic rooted in love in all its forms; an odyssey of statelessness; a haunted museum of history ranging from Sarajevo to Shanghai and Jerusalem . . . This life-stuffed novel is Aleksandar Hemon’s masterpiece (David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas)
All stars
Most relevant  
This book is beautifully written and read. It is very moving in many parts despite the often harrowing content. That it seems to have been based on true events makes it more so.

A 20th century odyssey

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It was a delight to read this beautiful story woven with so many cultures. Apart from English, there is a smooth intertwining of languages and how naturally understood they are as listened to. As a Bosnian myself living abroad, every paragraph gave a familiar smell. A warm recommendation to all who like a good story and longs for home that does not exist anymore.

A warm recommendation to all who like a good story and longs for home that does not exist anymore

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The audio includes so many revisions, recorded in a substandard studio, that it seriously mars enjoyment.

Good novel spoiled by poor production

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Gripping yet sensitive. A huge Europen novel with a penchant for deep reflexivity and historical breath. Hamon belings tona vanishing tribe of writers who know how to tell a story yet take you to the depths of the big questions.
Kudos!

A masterpiece!

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Gripping, moving, important history. How we got here, how they got there, what has been endured. An historical novel of their times for ours. Atmospheric and beautifully narrated.

European journey

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A strange book that reads like a fable, much of it like the Perils of Pauline where the hero and heroine are about to die for certain. Then the next episode is some time later, which proves they didn’t, but not how. How for example does a man keep a new born infant alive in a desert?

It narrates an epic tale of transcontinental flight, addiction, hallucinations and love. The world is rough, ruinous, dangerous but haloed with oases of care.

The narrator is pretty good coping with a diverse language but the production is literally a bit patchy: there are short dubbed in patches in the wrong voice.

I shall remember its surreal world and the tenderness.

A rather weird realist fable of tenderness in a rough world

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