Author(s): Rana Dasgupta

Large Format

Solo is a devastating, rapturous novel about the life and daydreams of Ulrich, a one hundred year-old man from Bulgaria.

A blind man approaches his one hundredth birthday in Sofiaâ the Bulgarian capital. Frail and introspectiveâ he spends his time musing on a magazine piece he read some years agoâ before he lost his sight: explorers had come upon a company of jungle parrots that still spoke snatches of the language of an extinct society. The birds were then capturedâ caged and sent homeâ in the hope that linguists might begin to piece together the lost language from their puzzling squawks and screeches. But the birds died on the way backâ taking with them the last remnants of a disappeared civilisation. The parallels are all too apparent to the blind man: he fears that he too carries within him only a shredded inheritanceâ and that he is too concussedâ too remote to pass anything on. Wondering what wisdom he has to leave to the worldâ he embarks on an epic armchair journey through historyâ memoryâ and prophecy that he writes up in the Book of Life and the Book of Daydreams. Throughout this lyricalâ moving and deeply imaginative novelâ the blind man leads us through the twists and turns of his country′s turbulent century and his ownâ equally engaging story of enlightenmentâ love and loss. A vision emerges of a beleaguered and damaged nation − stained by empireâ monarchyâ revolutionâ Fascism and Communism − and of a moribund man desperately trying to leave a part of himself behind. First published 2009.