Set in an unspecified South American country, the story begins at a birthday party thrown at the country's vice presidential home in honor of Katsumi Hosokawa, the visiting chairman of a large Japanese company and opera enthusiast. Opera is a centralizing theme on many levels throughout the story the operatic term bel canto literally means "beautiful singing." Many of the characters form unbreakable bonds of friendship, while some fall in love. It was also adapted into an opera in 2015.īased on the Japanese embassy hostage crisis (also called the Lima Crisis) of 1996–1997 in Lima, Peru, the novel follows the relationships among a group of young terrorists and their hostages, who are mostly high-profile executives and politicians, over several months. It was placed on several top book lists, including Amazon's Best Books of the Year (2001). It was awarded both the Orange Prize for Fiction and PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. It is a novel to be cherished.Bel Canto is the fourth novel by American author Ann Patchett, published in 2001 by Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Bel Canto is a virtuoso performance by one of our best and most important writers. As a reader, you find yourself fervently wanting this captivity to continue forever, even though you know that real life waits on the other side of the garden wall. Bel Canto engenders in the reader the very passion for art and the language of music that its characters discover. Friendship, compassion, and the chance for great love lead the characters to forget the real danger that has been set in motion and cannot be stopped.Īnn Patchett has written a novel that is as lyrical and profound as it is unforgettable.
At once riveting and impassioned, the narrative becomes a moving exploration of how people communicate when music is the only common language. Without the demands of the world to shape their days, life on the inside becomes more beautiful than anything they had ever known before. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different countries and continents become compatriots. It is a perfect evening - until a band of gun-wielding terrorists breaks in through the air-conditioning vents and takes the entire party hostage. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. Hosokawa, a powerful Japanese businessman. Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of Mr.
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