I always think the first novels are essential. If I like an author’s first novel, then I will read his/her next books as well. After reading Jan-Philipp Sendker’s first novel, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, I was smiling. So I’ll be reading his books from now on.
Although The Art of Hearing Heartbeats is actually a romance novel, there is much more to the book, and it takes place in Burma. I was more interested in how people perceive the world than the love story. It was so adorable to capture the differences between the people living in rural areas and the people living in cities. And although I say I wasn’t interested in the love story, the one in this book is something else.
I’d recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a heartwarming story with a clever, cultural background. Enjoy!
The Art of Hearing Heartbeats
A poignant and inspirational love story set in Burma, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats spans the decades between the 1950s and the present.
When a successful New York lawyer suddenly disappears without a trace, neither his wife nor his daughter Julia has any idea where he might be – until they find a love letter he wrote many years ago, to a Burmese woman they have never heard of.
Intent on solving the mystery and coming to terms with her father’s past, Julia decides to travel to the village where the woman lived. There she uncovers a tale of unimaginable hardship, resilience, and passion that will change her life once more.
Jan-Philipp Sendker
Jan-Philipp Sendker was born in Hamburg in 1960. At the age of 13 he wrote in a school essay about what he would like to do as a grown up: Write novels. He finished school but never went to university. Instead he started writing novels. Despite brilliant ideas and promising first chapters, he never wrote more than twenty pages. He moved to Paris for inspiration, studied the language and the parisian life-style – both with very limited success.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
