Who is Martha?
ABOUT
THE BOOK
In this rollicking novel, 96-year-old ornithologist Luka Levadski foregoes treatment for lung cancer and moves from Ukraine to Vienna to make a grand exit in a luxury suite at the Hotel Imperial. He reflects on his past while indulging in Viennese cakes and savoring music in a gilded concert hall. Levadski was born in 1914, the same year that Martha – the last of the now-extinct passenger pigeons – died. Levadski himself has an acute sense of being the last of a species. He may have devoted much of his existence to studying birds, but now he befriends a hotel butler and another elderly guest, who also doesn’t have much time left, to share in the lively escapades of his final days. This gloriously written tale, in which Levadski feels “his heart pounding at the portals of his brain,” mixes piquant wit with lofty musings about life, friendship, aging and death.
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Arabella
Spencer
Arabella Spencer studied German and philosophy at King’s College London and literary translation at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. She has lived in Munich and Seville and currently lives in London.
Arabella Spencer studied German and philosophy at King’s College London and literary translation at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. She has lived in Munich and Seville and currently lives in London.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
According to Christian Jahl: “A great novel about Luka Levadski – 96-year-old, professor emeritus of Zoology, and ornithologist who travels to Vienna to die in luxury at the Hotel Imperial – which tells us a lot about his life.”