Maxence Fermine – författare

Yuko Akita had two passions.Haiku and snow.It is April 1884 and Yuko Akita has reached his seventeenth birthday on the Island of Hokkaid in the North of Japan. The time has come to choose his vocation, warrior or monk, but against the wishes of his father, Yuko settles on a third option: he will be a poet. Yuko begins to write the seventeen-syllable poems we know as haiku--all celebrating the beauty of snow, his one great subject. One day, the Imperial Poet arrives from the Emperor''s court. He has heard about the beauty of Yuko''s poems and has come to meet the young poet himself. While agreeing the poems have a music all their own, the Imperial Poet notes that lacking color, Yuko''s poems are destined to remain invisible to the world. If the young poet is to learn color, he must study with the great artist Soseki in the south of Japan.Yuko sets off on a treacherous journey across the whole of Japan. Cold, hungry, and exhausted, he encounters a vision that will forever change his life. It is a woman, frozen in the ice. With pale gold hair, ice blue eyes and a face as white as snow, the dead beauty will obsess Yuko. Who was she? How did she come to meet her death in the depths of his beloved snow?Arriving at Soseki''s door, Yuko is shocked to discover that the great master of color is blind. He will gradullay come to learn that color is not something outside of us, but within us. He will also learn about his master''s Samurai past...and Soseki''s link to the woman in the snow. It is a beautiful love story which will have its echo in Yuko''s own as he finds his own, living, daughter of snow....With stunning visual images created out of minimalist prose, Snow is as delicate and inspiring as the haiku poetry it celebrates and emulates. A swift and refreshing read, the novel treats readers to a gorgeous love story while gently floating ideas such as what is the nature of art and perception? What is the place of passion in art and in life? Highly romantic and gracefully written, Snow is destined to become a cult classic.

Yuko Akita had two passions.Haiku and snow.It is April 1884 and Yuko Akita has reached his seventeenth birthday on the Island of Hokkaid in the North of Japan. The time has come to choose his vocation, warrior or monk, but against the wishes of his father, Yuko settles on a third option: he will be a poet. Yuko begins to write the seventeen-syllable poems we know as haiku--all celebrating the beauty of snow, his one great subject. One day, the Imperial Poet arrives from the Emperor's court. He has heard about the beauty of Yuko's poems and has come to meet the young poet himself. While agreeing the poems have a music all their own, the Imperial Poet notes that lacking color, Yuko's poems are destined to remain invisible to the world. If the young poet is to learn color, he must study with the great artist Soseki in the south of Japan.Yuko sets off on a treacherous journey across the whole of Japan. Cold, hungry, and exhausted, he encounters a vision that will forever change his life. It is a woman, frozen in the ice. With pale gold hair, ice blue eyes and a face as white as snow, the dead beauty will obsess Yuko. Who was she? How did she come to meet her death in the depths of his beloved snow?Arriving at Soseki's door, Yuko is shocked to discover that the great master of color is blind. He will gradullay come to learn that color is not something outside of us, but within us. He will also learn about his master's Samurai past...and Soseki's link to the woman in the snow. It is a beautiful love story which will have its echo in Yuko's own as he finds his own, living, daughter of snow....With stunning visual images created out of minimalist prose, Snow is as delicate and inspiring as the haiku poetry it celebrates and emulates. A swift and refreshing read, the novel treats readers to a gorgeous love story while gently floating ideas such as what is the nature of art and perception? What is the place of passion in art and in life? Highly romantic and gracefully written, Snow is destined to become a cult classic.

There were many musical souls adrift on that raft of silence that is Venice. There was the music of Johannes Karelsky.There was the music of Erasmus, the violin maker. And there was the music of war. But of that, the two men never spoke.From the internationally acclaimed author of Snow comes a timeless tale of love and music set against the romantic backdrop of eighteenth-century Venice.In 1797, the violin prodigy Johannes Karelsky arrives in Venice after fighting with Napoleon''s army in the Italian campaign. After the war, he boards with an aged violin maker named Erasmus who created the legendary "Black Violin," which he forbids Johannes to touch because, as he says, "Once you have tasted it, you will never be the same again." Johannes becomes obsessed with the idea of playing this violin as well as finding the woman who saved his life when he was injured in battle.Beautifully written and highly evocative, The Black Violin interweaves Johannes''s quest for love and the history of this mysterious instrument in a narrative that is sure to resonate long after the last page is turned.

Schon als Kind ist Charles Stowe, der Sohn eines Londoner Teehändlers, fasziniert von den Geheimnissen des Tees. Die Welt der tausend Düfte und Aromen verzaubert den jungen Mann so sehr, dass er aufbricht, um den seltensten chinesischen Tee nach England zu importieren. Die Begegnung mit der mysteriösen Loan bringt seine Pläne durcheinander. Die schöne Frau scheint ihm begehrenswerter als der edelste Tee. Doch Loan gehört dem mächtigen Tee-Mogul Lu Chen, der nur eine Schwäche hat: Opium. Sieben Tage und Nächte darf Charles mit Loan verbringen – unter der Bedingung, dass er die Gegend anschließend sofort verlässt …

Yukos Leidenschaft gilt der Poesie, vor allem den Haikus, und dem Schnee. Der Schnee ist für ihn das vollkommen Schöne – ein Gedicht, eine Kalligraphie, ein Gemälde. Einen Winter lang steigt er jeden Tag auf einen Berg und schreibt Haikus. Als er sein 77. Gedicht vollendet hat, steht plötzlich ein Abgesandter des kaiserlichen Hofes vor der Tür. Er prophezeit ihm eine glänzende Karriere als Hofdichter, wenn er unter den Lehreraugen des berühmten Meisters Soseki seine Kunst vervollkommnet. Also macht Yuko sich auf den Weg und erlernt nicht nur höchste Dichtkunst, sondern erkennt auch die Traurigkeit, die seinen Lehrer umgibt – er erfährt die Geschichte einer wunderschönen Frau, die Soseki einst liebte. Sie war Seiltänzerin und ihr Name war Schnee.

Der Geigenvirtuose Johannes Karelsky wird an den europäischen Höfen als Wunderkind gefeiert. Als er Jahre später schwer verwundet auf dem Schlachtfeld liegt, dringt eine reine und wohlklingende Stimme an sein Ohr. Inmitten von Angst und Tod singt sie eine betörende Melodie, die Johannes fortan in seinen Träumen begleitet. In Venedig macht er die schicksalhafte Bekanntschaft von Erasmus, Geigenbauer und Stradivari-Schüler, dessen Träume ebenfalls von einer Stimme durchzogen sind. Von der Stimme einer Frau, über die er nicht spricht. Ebenso wenig wie über die schwarze Geige, die unberührt an seiner Wand hängt. Johannes ist fasziniert von der geheimnisvollen Violine – bis der Geigenbauer ihm schließlich ihre fatale Geschichte erzählt.