It feels impossible to put any sort of frame around it. The prose is exquisite, wounding, some of the most powerful I’ve seen. ‘Lushly beautiful … One of the most important works of our time.It’s a book about the contradictions of love, but unlike any I’ve seen before. ‘Legendary … Casts a spell … Reader, watch out!’ Guardian

‘Brave and brazen … Lush and grandiose.’ Independent ‘Dazzlingly exuberant … Reckless … Superb.’ Observer ‘One of the great works of English fiction.’ Times ‘What makes this novel truly spectacular is the language, the episodic jumps in time, the lush lyricism, and how Durrell so deftly manages to tie this all into both the city of Alexandria and the themes of passion, love, and jealousy. ‘Lush, brutal, beautiful … Durrell captured a place and time that will never exist again.’ ‘Shimmering and dreamlike … One of the most beautifully written books I’ve read … All of life is here can’t wait for the next one.’ ‘I absolutely adored this book … I felt sucked into it with an amazing force by the beauty of the words … The backdrop of 1930s Egypt’s literary circles and bohemian relationships is mesmerising … Breathtaking.’ ‘Sometimes you discover a new author and know you’re going to be friends for life … One of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read.’ One of the world’s greatest romances, rich in political and sexual intrigue, Lawrence Durrell’s scandalous ‘investigation of modern love’ set the world alight in 1957 and – as Andre Aciman reveals – it burns just as brightly today. When a penniless schoolteacher begins an affair with Justine – a married Egyptian lady of unparalleled glamour – their partners are sucked into a whirlpool of jealousy and violence. But in a world trembling on the brink of war, passion and death are inextricable. Trams, palm trees, and watermelon stalls lie honey-bathed in sunlight in darkened bedrooms, sweaty lovers unfurl.

I remembered Justine saying harshly as she lay in bed: ‘We use each other like axes to cut down the ones we really love’.Īlexandria: the great winepress of love. Rediscover one of the twentieth century’s greatest romances: this seductive tale of four tangled lovers in wartime Egypt, introduced by Andre Aciman (Call Me By Your Name and Find Me), is ‘wonderful’ (Elif Shafak)

Justine book durrell