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Year of the Drought

Year of the Drought

Author(s): Roland Buti

Location(s): Canton Vaud

Genre(s): Fiction

Era(s): 1976

Location

Content

WINNER SWISS LITERATURE PRIZE WINNER PRIX DU PUBLIC DE LA R.T.S. WINNER Prix des Lectrices Edelweiss SHORTLISTED PRIX MÉDICIS
It was the month of June, in the year 1976. I was thirteen. It was the start of the summer holidays. It was the year of the drought.

The Sutters have been farming on the Swiss plateau for generations, but now the household teeters on the brink of ruin. The crops are audibly roasting; the cooling systems of the new hen-house are breaking down; even the family sheepdog, Sheriff, has taken to fainting in the unheard-of temperatures.

When the glamorous, metropolitan Cécile comes to stay at the farm, she quickly becomes a focus for dreams that have long been suppressed — of freedom, art and sex. Meanwhile, 13-year-old Gus, with only his injured dove for company, observes helplessly as his family and his carefree childhood dissolve in the heat.

A tender, funny, elegiac novel about a lost, rural way of life, Year of the Drought is a perfect companion to Robert Seethaler’s A Whole Life. Taking place over one apocalyptic summer, it evokes several worlds — of childhood, of traditional farming, of patriarchy — at the very moment of their destruction.

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Lead Review

Author: tripfiction

Auguste (Gus) Sutter is 13 when the Summer drought of 1976 clamps its iron grip across Europe. He is part of a farming family in French speaking Switzerland. His father has just invested in...

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