LINDA GRANT (b.1951)
When I Lived in Modern Times. London: Granta Books, 2000.
‘Our memories are who we really are’: first edition of the Orange Prize-winning novel, signed and annotated by the author with 828 words across 54 pages. Grant’s novel centres on the twenty-year-old Evelyn Sert, a hairdresser from London who in the spring of 1946 sails to ‘the glittering white Bauhaus city of Tel Aviv, where Jewish refugees and idealists from all over Europe are gathering to forge not only the new Jew but a modern consciousness on the edge of the Middle East.’ The author’s numerous marginal annotations offer valuable insights into her research and her various sources of inspiration: ‘It began with a visit to Israel in March 1998 […] I spent two days by myself, knowing no-one, wandering the streets of the city, seeing, for the first time, the Bauhaus architecture. That’s when the idea was born of the passing of modern times.’

Octavo. Original black cloth, gilt lettering to spine, dust jacket.

Buyer’s premium is payable, with a significant portion donated by Christie’s to English PEN, but note that no VAT is payable on hammer price or buyer’s premium.
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