Rose for Winter

Andalusia is a passion - and fifteen years after his last visit Laurie Lee returned. He found a country broken by the Civil War, but the totems of indestructible Spain survive: the Christ in agony, the thrilling flamenco cry-the pride in poverty, the gypsy intensity in vivid whitewashed slums, the cult of the bullfight, the exultation in death, the humour of hopelessness-the paradoxes deep in the fiery bones of Spain. Rich with kaleidoscopic images, A Rose for Winter is as sensual and evocative as the sun-scorched landscape of Andalusia itself.

Review: He has a nightingale inside him, a capacity for sensuous, lyrical precision * Guardian *

One of the great writers of the last century whose work conjured up a world of earthly warmth and beauty * Independent *

Out of a winter in Southern Spain, Mr Lee has spun a magnificent book, outstanding even in a field where the competition is oppressively brilliant' * New Statesman *