Quake

“Quake, never published while Mrosovsky was alive, is witty, illuminating and replete with life, an extraordinary one-off performance to savor before the theatre went dark … For Olivia and her author there are no taboos: sex is an absolute good, described in epicurean detail as if it is delicious food for the hungry … Misunderstood and undervalued by publishers of the eighties and nineties, Quake is finally published now in an era when it can be seen for what it is: one of the few works of art that perfectly capture the bliss and tragedy of those phosphorescent years.”

—Maggie Gee, From the Foreword

—Isabel Fonseca, Times Literary Supplement

—Amanda Mitchison, The Independent

Kitty Mrosovsky (1946–1995) was born in England though spent the formative years of her childhood in Tunisia and Rome, where her Russian-Italian father—a close friend of Vladimir Nabokov’s from their student days together at Cambridge—was working as a geophysicist. After taking a first class honours degree and a BPhil in comparative literature from Somerville College, Oxford, Mrosovsky worked as a book reviewer, an Open University tutor, and a theater critic. She was also a talented pianist. Her highly acclaimed translation of Flaubert’s The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1980) was later reissued as a Penguin Classic, and her first novel Hydra (1985) received similarly enthusiastic applause. She was only 48 years old when she died.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.