PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
In the last year of the Bosnian war, David lived as a teacher and a student among the refugees of Srebrenica, helping to organise a summer university for students in the safe-haven of Tuzla. Over the past fifteen years he has returned to Bosnia several times. Tuzla, and the real story of its 'Youth Day' massacre, became the inspiration for the fictional town of Stovnik. In an eight-year career as a BBC Current Affairs journalist, David worked on Panorama, This World, Real Story, World at One and PM. In 2004, he arrived on the beaches of Phuket two days after the Indian Ocean Tsunami. He spent the next six months in Thailand and Sri Lanka, where he made two documentaries about the aftermath of the disaster. David now has two children and teaches Creative Writing at St Mary's University, London.
Tense and powerful ... Faultless ... Savill sidesteps the easy answers or received wisdoms about the labyrinthine, internecine war ... They are Trying to Break Your Heart triumphs Times Literary Supplement A pageturner of some considerable force. David Savill writes with a profound intelligence and compassion about subjects that really matter Nathan Filer A Searing debut novel ... Family, love, responsibility, desire, memory, lust, death and the unspeakable - all these and more are stitched through a plot that ranges across 10 years of time, half a world, and a couple dozen characters ... Savill's is a mash-up of the international thriller and novel of ideas and it succeeds measurably in both LA Times They Are Trying to Break Your Heart is moving, tender, thrilling, important. It will stay with me for a very long time Megan Bradbury, author of Everyone is Watching They Are Trying to Break Your Heart is a beautifully balanced and nuanced novel. Savill threads together the various strands of his story superbly to produce a novel full of the mystery and wonder of the world Richard Skinner A remarkable book. They Are Trying To Break Your Heart moves with the force of a thriller, spanning decades and conjuring different continents, and their people, with ease. David Savill will break your heart, then put it back together again, page by page, in prose of aching emotional truth Anna Hope, author of Wake This is the first book I've read that truly represents the political climate of the twenty-first century's first decade. Moving between Sarajevo and Thailand, this multi-layered, global novel tackles what happens in the face of unbearable trauma ... The story evokes a pointed and contemporary question: how can we dare to love, when everything around us is broken? Julia Bell Whisks the reader off to the gripping heart of foreign wars and shores ... A breathtaking debut that doesn't pull its punches Tim Samuels
