Stephen Wraysford, a young Englishman, arrives in Amiens in northern France in 1910 to stay with the Azaire family, and falls in love with unhappily married Isabelle. But, with the world on the brink of war, the relationship falters, and Stephen volunteers to fight on the Western Front.

Set before and during the great war, Birdsong captures the drama of that era on both a national and a personal scale. It is the story of Stephen, a young Englishman, who arrives in Amiens in 1910. His life goes through a series of traumatic experiences, from the clandestine love affair that tears apart the family with whom he lives, to the unprecedented experiences of the war itself.

Review
“Magnificent - deeply moving” Sunday Times “Engrossing, moving, and unforgettable” The Times “With Birdsong Faulks has produced a mesmerizing story of love and war... This book is so powerful that as I finished it I turned to the front to start again” Sunday Express “One of the finest novels of the last forty years” Mail on Sunday “Amazing... I have read it and re-read it and can think of no other novel for many, many years that has so moved me or stimulated in me so much reflection on the human spirit” Daily Mail

Sebastian Faulks is the author of the French trilogy, The Girl at the Lion d'Or, Birdsong and Charlotte Gray (1989-1997); a triple biography, The Fatal Englishman (1996); a book of literary parodies, Pistache (2006); a work of literary criticism that accompanied his hugely successful BBC television series, Faulks on Fiction (2011); and the novels Human Traces (2005), Engleby (2007) and the number one bestseller A Week in December (2009). He lives in London with his wife and their three children.