Bird City in the Clouds

The latest novel by Anthony Doerr, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book «All the Light We Cannot See»; like this international bestseller, «Bird City in the Clouds» was included in the shortlist for the National Book Award in the USA. The novel is constructed like a matryoshka (or «Cloud Atlas» by David Mitchell): here, the lives and fates of Anna and Omir, who are on different sides of the wall in besieged Constantinople in 1453, intertwine cunningly, as do the elderly enthusiast of ancient Greek literature Zeno and the young eco-terrorist Seymour in modern Idaho, as well as Constancia, who is flying to a distant exoplanet on the ship «Argo» under the control of the all-knowing Sibyl. Like Marie-Laure and Werner in the novel «All the Light We Cannot See», all five here — dreamers and outsiders, who do not lose hope even in the midst of the most hopeless, seemingly chaos and despair: «„Bird City in the Clouds“ shows that not everything is lost for us yet — and that an important tool for salvation is indeed literature» (Boston Globe) — for example, the mythical story of the ancient Greek Aiton, who dreams of turning into a bird and flying to the fairy-tale city in the clouds… «„Bird City in the Clouds“ covers an incredible range of knowledge and life experience. It is a humane and inspiring book for adults, filled with unforgettable magic of childhood reading experiences» (New York Times Book Review).