Kirjahaku

The authorized, original edition of Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning classic with a foreword by acclaimed author Russell Banks and an afterword by Wilder's nephew, Tappan Wilder, with illuminating documentary material about the novel and its rich literary history."As close to perfect a moral fable as we are ever likely to get in American literature." --Russell Banks"There are books that haunt you down the years, books that seem to touch and stir something deep inside you. . . . Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey is of this kind." --The Independent (London)"On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below." This immortal sentence opens The Bridge of San Luis Rey, one of the towering achievements in American literature, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and a novel still read throughout the world.Brother Juniper, a Franciscan monk, witnesses the tragic event. Deeply moved, he embarks on a quest to prove that it was divine intervention, not chance, that led to the deaths of the five people crossing the bridge that day. Ultimately, his search leads to a timeless investigation into the nature of fate and love, and the meaning of the human condition.

An ancient bridge collapses over a gorge in Peru, hurling five people into the abyss. It seems a meaningless human tragedy. But one witness, a Franciscan monk, believes the deaths might not be as random as they appear. Convinced that the disaster is a punishment sent from Heaven, the monk sets out to discover all he can about the travellers. The five strangers were connected in some way, he thinks. There must be a purpose behind their deaths. But are their lost lives the result of sin? ... Or of love?

In eighteenth-century Peru, a historic bridge connecting the cities of Cuzco and Lima collapses, plunging five people to their deaths. A Franciscan monk, Brother Juniper, witnesses the tragedy and embarks on a spiritual quest to reconcile free will versus fate and the existence of God in the victims' lives: "Why did this happen to those five people?" This thought-provoking, Pulitzer Prize-winning second novel by American writer Thornton Wilder was called "a masterpiece" by The New York Times when it was published in 1927. Critically acclaimed, it remains a compelling literary classic exploring destiny, love, religion, and the meaning of life.

This Pulitzer Prize-winning, fable-like short novel--by the author of Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth--has been beloved around the world for nearly a century. This splendid and profoundly moving novel begins with a simple and seemingly senseless tragedy. On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below. A traveling monk, Brother Juniper, witnesses the catastrophe and becomes obsessed with investigating the lives of the five victims in order to prove that their deaths had meaning. His mission is doomed to fail, but over the course of the story, the five unlucky individuals--a noblewoman, a maid, an orphan, an old man, and a child--come to life for the reader in all of their glorious complexity. Their intertwined lives--snuffed out in one shattering moment--illuminate the biggest questions that we can ask ourselves about the nature of love and meaning of the human condition.

First published in 1927 and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1928, "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" is the moving story of a tragic accident and its aftermath by American author Thornton Wilder. The novel tells the fictional story of the victims of a horrific collapse of an Incan rope bridge in Peru and how they came to be on the bridge on that fateful day. Set in the early 18th century, the novel begins with a description of the bridge's collapse, which claimed the lives of all five people who were crossing it, by the tragedy's sole witness: a Franciscan friar, Brother Juniper, who was almost crossing the bridge himself when it collapsed. Brother Juniper wishes to make sense of the day's events and hopes to understand how the tragedy relates to Divine Providence by finding out all that he can about the victims. The friar begins a philosophical and introspective journey that will last him several years and takes him thousands of miles. Critically acclaimed and deeply thoughtful, "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" endures as a timeless story of loss, tragedy, and man's eternal search for meaning in a cruel world.

First published in 1927 and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1928, "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" is the moving story of a tragic accident and its aftermath by American author Thornton Wilder. The novel tells the fictional story of the victims of a horrific collapse of an Incan rope bridge in Peru and how they came to be on the bridge on that fateful day. Set in the early 18th century, the novel begins with a description of the bridge's collapse, which claimed the lives of all five people who were crossing it, by the tragedy's sole witness: a Franciscan friar, Brother Juniper, who was almost crossing the bridge himself when it collapsed. Brother Juniper wishes to make sense of the day's events and hopes to understand how the tragedy relates to Divine Providence by finding out all that he can about the victims. The friar begins a philosophical and introspective journey that will last him several years and takes him thousands of miles. Critically acclaimed and deeply thoughtful, "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" endures as a timeless story of loss, tragedy, and man's eternal search for meaning in a cruel world.

First published in 1927 and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1928, "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" is the moving story of a tragic accident and its aftermath by American author Thornton Wilder. The novel tells the fictional story of the victims of a horrific collapse of an Incan rope bridge in Peru and how they came to be on the bridge on that fateful day. Set in the early 18th century, the novel begins with a description of the bridge's collapse, which claimed the lives of all five people who were crossing it, by the tragedy's sole witness: a Franciscan friar, Brother Juniper, who was almost crossing the bridge himself when it collapsed. Brother Juniper wishes to make sense of the day's events and hopes to understand how the tragedy relates to Divine Providence by finding out all that he can about the victims. The friar begins a philosophical and introspective journey that will last him several years and takes him thousands of miles. Critically acclaimed and deeply thoughtful, "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" endures as a timeless story of loss, tragedy, and man's eternal search for meaning in a cruel world. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey tells the story of several interrelated people who die in the collapse of an Inca rope bridge in Peru, and the events that lead up to their being on the bridge. A friar who witnesses the accident then goes about inquiring into the lives of the victims, seeking some sort of cosmic answer to the question of why each had to die. Is there a direction or meaning in lives beyond that of an individual's own will? Powerful and Compelling. Thornton Wilder is a masterful story teller and this was his most important novel.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey tells the story of several interrelated people who die in the collapse of an Inca rope bridge in Peru, and the events that lead up to their being on the bridge. A friar who witnesses the accident then goes about inquiring into the lives of the victims, seeking some sort of cosmic answer to the question of why each had to die. Is there a direction or meaning in lives beyond that of an individual's own will? Powerful and Compelling. Thornton Wilder is a masterful story teller and this was his most important novel.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey tells the story of several interrelated people who die in the collapse of an Inca rope bridge in Peru, and the events that lead up to their being on the bridge. A friar who witnesses the accident then goes about inquiring into the lives of the victims, seeking some sort of cosmic answer to the question of why each had to die.The Bridge of San Luis Rey won the 1928 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, and remains widely acclaimed as Wilder's most famous work. citation needed] In 1998, the book was rated number 37 by the editorial board of the American Modern Library on the list of the 100 best 20th-century novels. Time magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.From the earnings of The Bridge of San Luis Rey, in 1930 Wilder built a house for his family in Hamden, Connecticut. His sister Isabel lived there for the rest of her life. This became his home base, although he traveled extensively and lived away for significant periods. He died in this house on December 7, 1975, of heart failure. He was interred at Mount Carmel Cemetery, Hamden, Connecticut.

The story centers on a fictional event that happened in Peru on the road between Lima and Cuzco, at noon on Friday, July the twentieth, 1714. A rope bridge woven by the Inca a century earlier collapsed at that particular moment, while five people were crossing it, sending them falling from a great height to their deaths in the river below. The collapse was witnessed by Brother Juniper, a Franciscan friar who was on his way to cross the bridge himself. A deeply pious man who seeks to provide some sort of empirical evidence that might prove to the world God's Divine Providence, he sets out to interview everyone he can find who knew the five victims. Over the course of six years, he compiles a huge book of all of the evidence he gathers to show that the beginning and end of a person is all part of God's plan for that person. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928, and was the best-selling work of fiction that year.