Lit in Translation

Mister Pip

Mister Pip

Lloyd Jones (born 1955)

English editions

Written in English

* Affiliate link. As an Amazon Associate and a Bookshop.org affiliate I earn from qualifying purchases. The price stays the same for you.

Bougainville, 1991. War is creeping towards a village on this copper-rich South Pacific island; most outsiders have left and the school has been closed for months. Mr Watts, a recluse the children call Pop Eye and the island's last white man, married to a local woman, clears out the abandoned classroom and starts to read Charles Dickens's Great Expectations aloud. Thirteen-year-old Matilda comes to love the orphan Pip and a London that feels more real to her than her own blighted surroundings. Her mother Dolores, a fiercely devout Christian, distrusts the teacher and his book, while other villagers come to the lessons to share stories of their own. But with soldiers on the island, a child's imagination can bring danger.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form
Novel
Genres
Coming of age, War (assigned by AI)
Set in
Papua New Guinea, 1991
First published
2006
Author's age
51 when first published
ISBN

9781921145575 (Text Publishing, Australia)

9780385341066 (The Dial Press, United States)

9780719564567 (John Murray, United Kingdom)

9780385341073 (Dial Press Trade Paperback, United States)

9780719569944 (John Murray, United Kingdom)

More
Wikidata