Some readers’ comments on Gabriel’s’ Gift: The first half was brilliant, full of quotable observations and laugh-out-loud hysterical. But then the story seemed to fall apart, the humor in revious chapters was nowhere to be found, and the dialogue seemed stilted. The author redeemed himself somewhat in the end, and I'm intrigued by him- definitely will pick up some of his other books! Absolutely loved Gabriel’s Gift! In a matter of a few sentences the reader is whisked into the mind and heart of an adolescent boy trying to understand the rollercoaster which is life. At the core of this novella is the question of how to hold onto imagination? How to hold onto losses...a twin, a marriage, the truth, ideals? Wonderfully crafted, this book is a gem!
Biblioteca Camp de l’Arpa-Caterina Albert
The writing is fine, the plot vapid, and the main character unconvincing (he's supposed to be fifteen, but thirteen would be more like it). The device of the ghost of the deceased twin is downright silly. The female in the tale, the mother, doesn't work at all!
Data comentari: 6 d’abril 2017 Hora: 19h Conductora: Pauline Ernest
Gabriel’s Gift Hanif Kuresihi
THE AUTHOR Hanif Kuresihi was born in Bromley, South London, to a Pakistani father, and an English mother. His father was from a wealthy Madras family who came to the UK in 1950 to study law His grandfather, an army doctor, was a colonel in the Indian army. Kureishi attended Bromley Technical High School and spent a year studying philosophy at Lancaster University before dropping out. Later he attended King's College London and took a degree in philosophy. Hanif Kureishi is an English playwright, screenwriter and filmmaker and novelist. He is the author of novels ( including The Buddah of Suburbia, The Black Album, Intimacy, Gabriel’s Gift) story collections ( Love in Blue Time; Midnight All Day; The Body); plays ( including Outskirts, Borderline, Sleep With Me) screen plays ( including My Beautiful Launderette, My son the fanatic, Venus); collections of essays ( including Dreaming and Scheming; The Word and the Bomb, and the memoir My Ear at his Heart) . Kureishi started his career in the 1970s as a pornography writer, and went on to write plays for different theatres in London. Hs novel My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), about a gay Pakistani-British boy growing up in up in 1980s London, was made into a very successful film directed by Stephen Frears. He also wrote the screenplay for Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987 and his book The Buddha of Suburbia (1990) won the Whitbread Award for the best first novel .
His novel Intimacy (1998) was adapted to a movie directed by Patrice Chéreau, and it won two awards at the Berlin Film Festival. Gabriel’s Gift was published in 2001 and his latest novel, Something to Tell You in 2008. Kureishi was given a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2008 New Year Honours and in May 2011, was awarded the second Asia House Literature Award.
GABRIEL’S GIFT Gabriel is 15 years old and his beloved father, a rock musician, has just been thrown out of the house by his mother. Navigating his way through the shattered world of his parents' 60s/70s generation of musicians and artists, Gabriel dreams of himself becoming an artist. He finds guidance through a mysterious connection to his dead twin brother, Archie, and his own gift for producing real objects simply by drawing them.
A chance visit with mega-millionaire rock star Lester Jones, his father's former band mate, provides Gabriel with the means to heal the problems within his family and to fulfil some of his hopes and aspirations.