It is 1941 and Captain Antonio Corelli, a young Italian officer, is posted to the Greek island of Cephallonia as part of the occupying forces. At first he is ostracised by the locals, but as a conscientious but far from fanatical soldier, whose main aim is to have a peaceful war, he proves in time to be civilised, humorous - and a consummate musician.

When the local doctor's daughter's letters to her fiance - and members of the underground - go unanswered, the working of the eternal triangle seems inevitable. But can this fragile love survive as a war of bestial savagery gets closer and the lines are drawn between invader and defender?

'Hypnotic...a vast tapestry woven in tiny, colourful, intricate detail...a graphic and moving commentary on the futility of war.
This magical book stayed in my head long after I had finished it'
MARIAN KEYES, IRISH TIMES

'A wonderful epic novel...it has made him a name to conjure with. Both on the large and the small scale it is an absorbing and memorable book...the sweep, invention and warmth of the novel carries one effortlessly along'
DERWENT MAY, THE TIMES

'Captain Corelli's Mandolin achieves that rare feat of saying something new about war...fusing with remarkable felicity the comic and the tragic, the lyrical and the epic...And without offering easy answers, it poses difficult questions about love and suspicion, trust and betrayal, faith and despair, creativity and destruction'
ANDRE BRINK, TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT,
INTERNATIONAL BOOKS OF THE YEAR