The Colonel's Wife
Rosa Liksom
Translated by Lola Rogers
05 November 2019Synopsis
A bold, dark-hued novel by a writer who “conjures beauty from the ugliest of things” (The Wall Street Journal)
In the final twilit moments of her life, an elderly woman looks back on her years in the thrall of fascism and Nazism. Both her authoritarian tendencies and her ecstatic engagement with the natural world are vividly and terrifyingly evoked in The...
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05 November 2019
9781644450086Reviews
“Ms. Liksom is fearlessly good at portraying wicked men in all their moods and disguises. (Her fantastic novel Compartment No. 6 features a similar, and similarly compelling, figure.) . . . The novel is strongest when it’s most direct about why people engage in evil: Because they enjoy it.”—Wall Street Journal
“All the more thought-provoking and heart-rending in our current strained sociopolitical moment. . . . The Colonel’s Wife is equal parts horrifying and fascinating.”—Salon
“A chilling yet necessary book.”—Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
“Liksom's tale is a brilliantly drawn metaphor.”—PopMatters
“Amazing, powerful, and remarkable.”—Historical Novel Society
“Liksom’s novel memorably combines transportive prose and her narrator’s stark perspective.”—Publishers Weekly
“An intimate investigation of authoritarianism.”—Kirkus Reviews
“An astonishingly fearless, bold, and visceral exploration of the heart and life of a woman on the wrong side of history. . . . A tour de force.”—Stacey D’Erasmo
