Timothy Findley – författare

Robert Ross, a sensitive nineteen-year-old Canadian officer, went to war - the War to End All Wars. He found himself in the nightmare world of trench warfare; of mud and smoke, of chlorine gas and rotting corpses. In this world gone mad, Robert Ross performed a last desperate act to declare his commitment to life in the midst of death.The Wars is quite simply one of the best novels ever written about the First World War.

Carl Jung encounters a remarkable man who seems to have lived for millennia in this “exhilarating . . . mystifying and expertly crafted” novel (Publishers Weekly, starred review).On April 17, 1912—ironically, only two days after the sinking of the Titanic—a figure known only as Pilgrim tries to commit suicide by hanging himself from a tree. When he is found five hours later, his heart miraculously begins to beat again. Pilgrim, it seems, can never die. Escorted by his beloved friend, Lady Symbol Quartermaine, Pilgrim is admitted to the famous Burgholzli Psychiatrist Clinic In Zurich, where he will begin a battle of psyche and soul with Carl Jung, the self-professed mystical scientist of the unconscious. Slowly, Jung coaxes Pilgrim to tell his story—one that seemingly spans 4,000 years and includes such historical figures as Leonardo da Vinci and Henry James. But is Pilgrim delusional? Are these his memories merely dreams . . . or is his immortal existence truly a miracle?

In the final days of the Second World War, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley scrawls his desperate account on the walls and ceilings of his ice-cold prison high in the Austrian Alps. Officers of the liberating army discover his frozen, disfigured corpse and his astonishing testament - the sordid truth that he alone possessed. Fascinated but horrified, they learn of a dazzling array of characters caught up in a scandal and political corruption.Famous Last Words is part-thriller, part-horror story; it is also a meditation on history and the human soul and it is Findley's fine achievement that he has combined these elements into a web that constantly surprises and astounds the reader.