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  • Published: 1 September 2012
  • ISBN: 9781742749297
  • Imprint: Random House Australia
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 368

Candle Life




Dealing with the nature of reality and dreams, of love, identity, despair and salvation, this is a truly brilliant and startlingly original novel.

Dealing with the nature of reality and dreams, of love, identity, despair and salvation, this is a truly brilliant and startlingly original novel.

An Australian novelist is living in an arts community in Paris, trying to write. He is mourning the death of the love of his life, Kiko. Still drowning in grief, one day he is harassed by a beggar, who claims to be a famous American writer, Sonny Lee. As his life is penetrated by Sonny it begins to unravel. Soon the novelist encounters Zoya, a mute Russian girl with whom he makes love, and in turn she introduces him to Les Belles Endormies - a place where, after drinking a potent green tea, clients fall asleep and experience hallucinogenic dreams about episodes in their past.

In the meantime the death of a friend brings the novelist into contact with Emilie, and slowly love begins to seem possible to him again. The story moves from Paris's artistic community to the maelstrom of a dance party in the city's streets to its chilling subterranean catacombs to the eerie thermal springs of Pamukkale in Turkey.

  • Published: 1 September 2012
  • ISBN: 9781742749297
  • Imprint: Random House Australia
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 368

About the author

Venero Armanno

Venero (Veny) Armanno the author of two short story collections, Jumping at the Moon and Travel Under Any Star, and nine critically acclaimed novels. These include Black Mountain, The Dirty Beat, Romeo of the Underworld and Candle Life. His novel Firehead was shortlisted in the 1999 Queensland Premier’s Literary Award; in 2002 The Volcano won the award with Best Fiction Book of the year. His works have been published in the United States, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Holland, Israel and South Korea. Veny is a trained screenwriter and currently teaches creative writing at the University of Queensland.

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