De Bernières veers away from sentimentality and into tragedy

Louis de Bernières: his gift is to encompass the sweep of history in all its absurdities, cruelties and contradictions

FICTION: So Much Life Left Over, By Louis de Bernières , Harvill Secker/Vintage, €16.10

So Much Life Left Over is the ninth novel from the author of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and, more recently, The Dust That Falls From Dreams, to which it is a sequel. It follows Rosie McCosh and her husband, Captain Daniel Pitt, as they make a home in British Ceylon (Sri Lanka, today). The story is told as narrative montage ...