Лучшие книги Фрэнсиса Кинга

Перевод рассказа приведен в книге "Спасатель. Рассказы английских писателей о молодежи": http://www.livelib.ru/book/1000463287

В книгу включены рассказы из четырех сборников английского писателя Фрэнсиса Кинга, в том числе из его последнего - "Методом перевода". Повседневность и фантастика, горе и радость, смерть и жизнь - эти полярные, но почти всегда присутствующие категории в повествовании тонкого, вдумчивого мастера определяют судьбы и поступки его героев.

Воспоминания о далёком детстве нахлынули на Рейнольдса, когда он узнал из газет о розыске потерявшейся девочки. Эти воспоминания о его ребячьих «играх» с куклой послужили ключом к раскрытию важной детали страшного преступления.

Francis King's provocative and adventurous novel looks at the havoc wrought when a young Kosovar- an illegal immigrant - finds himself in London. Mehmet leads a double life befriending and lodging with an elderly woman who suffers from MS, while at the same time having an affair with a woman doctor and throwing himself onto the London gay scene. Disaster looms when he begins a relationship with a gay protector - and is arrested because of his illegal status.

In Florence on business, Max Westfield has brought his wife and children with him to make a holiday of it. But while shrewdly perceptive in financial matters, Max is completely blind to the passions and tragedies that soon begin to surround him. His wife despises him and is brazenly having an affair with a cynical expatriate, his secretary wants to be his mistress and dreams of accompanying him back to England, and his teenage son has fallen in love with a working-class Italian youth. With what Paul Binding calls his "darkly penetrative vision of existence," Francis King weaves these narrative threads into a complex and gripping story of isolation, despair, and death beneath the intense glare of the Tuscan sun.

Francis King (1923-2011) received favourable reviews for his first three novels, but it was his fourth, The Dividing Stream (1951), winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, that secured his international reputation as one of the foremost young writers of his generation. This edition, the first in more than 60 years, includes a new introduction by novelist and critic Paul Binding and a reproduction of the original dust jacket art by Leslie Wood.

Франсис Кинг се вълнува от темите за самотата, за равнодушието, граничещо с жестокост, и за неискреността в общуването между хората. Прекарал дълги години в различни краища на света, той сам окачествява себе си като вечен странник и героите му, подобно нему, са неспокойни бродници, сякаш лишени от корени. Към тях авторът проявява състрадание, по-скоро хладно и делово, но сходно с онова на опитен лекар, комуто можеш да се довериш.