In an imagined alternative 1944, after the fall of Russia and the failed D-Day landings, half of Britain is occupied...Young farmer's wife Sarah Lewis wakes to find her husband has disappeared, along with all of the men from her remote Welsh village. A German patrol arrives in the valley, the purpose of their mission a mystery. Sarah begins a faltering acquaintance with the patrol's commanding officer, Albrecht, and it is to her that he reveals the purpose of his mission - to claim an extraordinary medieval art treasure that lies hidden in the valley. But as the pressure of the war beyond presses in on this isolated community, this fragile state of harmony is increasingly threatened.
Author Biography
Owen Sheers was born in Fiji in 1974 and brought up in Abergavenny, South Wales. The winner of an Eric Gregory Award and the 1999 Vogue Young Writer's Award, his first collection of poetry, The Blue Book was short-listed for the Welsh Book of the Year and the Forward Prize Best 1st Collection 2001. His debut prose The Dust Diaries, a travel memoir set in Zimbabwe was short-listed for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and won the Welsh Book of the Year Award 2005. Unicorns, Almost his one man play about WWII poet Keith Douglas will be produced by Old Vic Productions. His second poetry collection Skirrid Hill was published in October.
