The World and All That It Holds

A Life-Stuffed Novel is a novel by Aleksandar Hemon that follows the story of Rafael Pinto and Osman, two soldiers entangled with spies and Bolsheviks during the Great War. It is a tale of love and survival that conquers war, revolution, and even death.

Format: Hardback
Length: 352 pages
Publication date: 02 February 2023
Publisher: Pan Macmillan

This life-stuffed novel is Aleksandar Hemons masterpiece, as described by David Mitchell, the author of Cloud Atlas. The epic, cross-continental tale of a love so strong that it conquers the Great War, revolution, and even death itself unfolds.

As the Archduke Franz Ferdinand arrives in Sarajevo on a June day in 1914, Rafael Pinto is busy crushing herbs and grinding tablets behind the counter at the pharmacy he inherited from his father. It's not quite the life he had expected during his poetry-filled student days in libertine Vienna, but it's nothing a dash of laudanum, a summer stroll, and idle fantasies can't put in perspective.

And then the world explodes. In the trenches in Galicia, fantasies fall flat. Heroism gets a man killed quickly. War devours all that they have known, and the only thing Pinto has to live for are the attentions of Osman, a fellow soldier, a man of action to complement Pinto's introspective, poetic soul; a charismatic storyteller and Pinto's protector and lover.

Together, Pinto and Osman will escape the trenches and find themselves entangled with spies and Bolsheviks. As they travel over mountains and across deserts, from one world to another, all the way to Shanghai, it is Pinto's love for Osman that will truly survive.

Weight: 562g
Dimension: 164 x 241 x 35 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780330513326