Those Barren Leaves Philip Hensher The GREAT ESCAPE tells how

The GREAT ESCAPE tells how more than six hundred men in a German prisoner-of-war camp worked together to achieve an extraordinary break-out

Using a number of original narrative techniques Johnson attempts to reproduce life (and its travails) as closely as possible through fiction

crops grow out of season or not at all

she had every prospect of a successful operation by a distinguished surgeon

Those Barren Leaves Philip Hensher The GREAT ESCAPE tells howIn a renovated Italian palace set above the blue of the sea, the Junoesque figure of Mrs Aldwinkle moves among her guests. These include a poet who earns his living editing The Rabbit Fancier's Gazette; a popular novelist who records every detail of her affair with another guest as future literary material; an aging philosopher who pursues a wealthy yet mentally disabled heiress and a pair of na ve and charming young lovers. Deliciously satirical,