"A writer of great intelligence and sensibility who never received the critical attention she deserved." -Amanda Mitchison, The Independent

A lush, labyrinthine novel of one woman's erotic odyssey, and the final testament by a neglected writer of extraordinary talent,

An Italian idyll: After meeting on the slopes of Mount Etna, Rosario, a young Sicilian, accepts British student Jess's invitation to join her at the villa where she and her friends are spending the summer. There, the enamored couple eat, drink, and make love amidst a backdrop of gossip, betrayal, and witty banter . . .

Or so Olivia, Rosario's bookish, older lover back in London, imagines. Recently arrived in the UK, he stumbled into her English-language class, then insisted they meet up that evening. Olivia knows she has no claim on this man with whom she is infatuated, but still she finds herself increasingly curious about her unknown rival for his attentions. But the more desperate her avenues of enquiry, the more elusive become both her sexual adversary and Rosario himself. Finally Olivia breaks from her orderly routine and travels to Sicily in search of his origins, in the ruins of his childhood village, destroyed in the earthquake of 1968.

Unpublished during its author's lifetime, this trailblazing, sensual portrait of female desire is Kitty Mrosovsky's most powerful work. It was also her last: written in the mid-1980s, shortly before she was diagnosed with the HIV infection that led to her death. "Witty, illuminating and replete with life, an extraordinary one-off performance to savor before the theatre went dark," writes Maggie Gee in her foreword, Quake is "one of the few works of art that perfectly capture the bliss and tragedy of those phosphorescent years."

About the Author

Kitty Mrosovsky (1946-1995) was born in England though spent the formative years of her childhood in Tunisia and Rome, where her Russian-Italian father-a close friend of Vladimir Nabokov's from their student days together at Cambridge-was working as a geophysicist. After taking a first class honours degree and a BPhil in comparative literature from Somerville College, Oxford, Mrosovsky worked as a book reviewer, an Open University tutor, and a theater critic. She was also a talented pianist. Her highly acclaimed translation of Flaubert's The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1980) was later reissued as a Penguin Classic, and her first novel Hydra (1985) received similarly enthusiastic applause. She was only 48 years old when she died.

Reviews

"Quake, never published while Mrosovsky was alive, is witty, illuminating and replete with life, an extraordinary one-off performance to savor before the theatre went dark . . . For Olivia and her author there are no taboos: sex is an absolute good, described in epicurean detail as if it is delicious food for the hungry . . . Misunderstood and undervalued by publishers of the eighties and nineties, Quake is finally published now in an era when it can be seen for what it is: one of the few works of art that perfectly capture the bliss and tragedy of those phosphorescent years."

-Maggie Gee, From the Foreword

"Her language is full of rich alliteration and rhythm, her images are original."

-Isabel Fonseca, Times Literary Supplement

"A writer of great intelligence and sensibility who never received the critical attention she deserved."

-Amanda Mitchison, The Independent

Book Information
ISBN 9781968671082
Author Kitty Mrosovsky
Format Paperback
Page Count 288
Imprint McNally Editions
Publisher McNally Jackson Books