A Compass Error: A Novel - Couverture souple

Sybille Bedford was born in 1911 in Charlottenburg, Germany, the daughter of a German father and an English mother. She grew up in Italy, France and England. A Visit to Don Otavio was her first published book in 1953, and she followed it with three novels, A Legacy (1956), A Favourite of the Gods (1963) and A Compass Error (1968). Her semi-autobiographical novel, Jigsaw, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1989. Her memoir, Quicksands, was published in 2005. Sybille Bedford died in 2006.

As the Second World War looms, Flavia is living in a small village in the South of France. She studies for her Oxford entrance, swims in the sea, eats at local cafés, and lives with all the confidence and relish of youth.

Drawn into the demi-monde of artists and writers, Flavia is awoken to the pleasures and complications of adult life. Her world is overturned when she becomes fascinated by Andrée – beautiful, sophisticated, yet manipulative – and is caught up in a devastating intrigue.