Womens Prize For Fiction Winner
Bel Canto
by Ann Patchett
Summary
A birthday party for a Japanese tycoon in an unnamed South American country collapses when guerrillas take the guests hostage, with an opera singer at its heart. Over months of captivity, captors and captives form a fragile community shaped by music, language and unlikely love. Patchett transforms a tense siege into a meditation on beauty, time and the lives we imagine for ourselves.
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Historical Context & Significance
Loosely inspired by the 1996 Lima embassy hostage crisis, Bel Canto became Ann Patchett's international breakthrough.