The book is the story of a tragic love affair. Rilke who has devoted his whole life to being a poet has hit a creative block. Despondent, he is on the verge of leaving Switzerland when he meets Elisabeth Klossowska in 1920. She becomes his lover and muse and finds a tower for him to complete his great poems, the Duino Elegies. He dies six years later at the age of 50 from leukaemia.


"Farrol Kahn's superb novel...lends the subject a truly Proustian perspective..It stirs and sustains the reader's involvement throughout...The animation of Rilke...is carried out brilliantly."
Ralph Freedman. Author of definitive biography - Life of a Poet:Rainer Maria Rilke.

"I've read the excerpt and I must say: absolutely brilliant!"
Oskar Freysinger, Swiss writer