Nominated for the Prix Medicis 2007 and the Prix FNAC 2007

 

Little by little, Elsa leaked out of her enclosure, strayed out into every corner of the house. The table was two floors below her and on the opposite side of the room and even there she disturbed me, made her presence felt. In my bed at night, she switched places with me, she enjoying the softness of my bed, and I finding myself cramped up in her airless niche.

 

This extraordinary novel is seen through the eyes of Johannes. An avid member of the Hitler Youth in the 1940s, he discovers his parents are hiding a Jewish girl called Elsa behind a false wall in their large house in Vienna. His initial horror turns to interest, then love and obsession. After the disappearance of his parents, Johannes finds he is the only one aware of Elsa's existence in the house, the only one responsible for her survival. Both manipulating and manipulated, Johannes dreads the end of the war: with it will come the prospect of losing Elsa and their relationship, which ranges through passion and obsession, dependence and indifference, love and hate.

 

This gripping, masterful work examines truth and lies at both political and personal levels, laying bare the darkest corners of the human soul. An inimitable book that builds upon Leunens’ darkly comic and highly acclaimed first novel, PRIMORDIAL SOUP (Dedalus,1999; ‘a remarkable debut novel…’Sunday Times; ‘highly original’, Cosmopolitan; ‘a small masterpiece.’ Marie Claire.)

 

Christine is working on her new novel, starring a young couple, a mother-in-law and a dog, to be delivered 2009.

 

‘The best part of this interesting novel is its ability to show parts of our history which others dismiss: why suffering can make some people more sensitive but others more cruel, and how a war, such an outrage to human dignity, blurs the line between victorious and defeated.’ Elle

‘It's difficult to believe that Christine Leunens has ever had an ugliness complex. With her past as a model, and a critically acclaimed first novel in England, the author arrives for the first time to Spanish readers with her novel CAGING SKIES, a complex story of "dark love" set in Vienna during the Second World War in which the subjects of beauty and ugliness are very present.’ El Pais

‘fascinates and leaves a rare impression of strangeness and power’ Le Nouvel Observateur

‘Leunens has created a powerful, imaginative and clever psychological drama.’ Nelson Mail (NZ)

‘totally compelling’ Woman’s Weekly (NZ)

‘A novel that breaks all the rules. In spite of this, or maybe because of it, the result is a disturbing and gripping novel that has haunted me ever since I finished reading it.' New Zealand Books