Overview

Hazzard is nothing if not discriminating. Hierarchies of feeling, perception, and taste abound in her writing, and this novel—her first in more than twenty years—takes on the very notion of what it means to be civilized. The fire of the title refers primarily to the atomic bombing of Japan, but also to the possibility of transcendent passion in its aftermath. In 1947, a thirty-two-year-old English war hero visiting Hiroshima

Hiroshima

is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...

 during the occupation finds himself billeted in a compound overseen by a boorish Australian brigadier and his scheming wife. He is immediately enchanted, however, by the couple's children—a brilliant, sickly young man and his adoring sister—who prove to be prisoners in a different sort of conflict. In the ensuing love story, Hazzard's moral refinement occasionally veers toward preciosity, but such lapses are counterbalanced by her bracing conviction that we either build or destroy the world we want to live in with our every word and gesture.

Awards

• William Dean Howells Medal, 2005
• International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
  International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
  The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award is an international literary award for a work of fiction, jointly sponsored by the city of Dublin, Ireland and the company IMPAC. At €100,000 it is one of the richest literary prizes in the world...
  
  , 2005: shortlisted
• Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize
  Kiriyama Prize
  The Kiriyama Prize is an international literary award given to books which will encourage greater understanding of and among the peoples and nations of the Pacific Rim and South Asia...
  
  , Fiction, 2004: finalist
• Miles Franklin Literary Award, 2004: winner
• Orange Prize for Fiction (UK), 2004: shortlisted
• Man Booker Prize
  Man Booker Prize
  The Man Booker Prize for Fiction is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland, or Zimbabwe. The winner of the Man Booker Prize is generally assured of international renown and...
  
  , 2004: longlisted
• National Book Award
  National Book Award
  The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
  
   (USA), Fiction, 2003: winner

Google books

• The Great Fire

Interviews

• BBC Radio 4 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/2003_47_fri_01.shtml - audio
• "The Guardian" http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/jul/08/featuresreviews.guardianreview19

Reviews

• "The Asian Review of Books" http://www.asianreviewofbooks.com/arb/article.php?article=452
• "The Guardian" http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2003/nov/15/featuresreviews.guardianreview29
• "Mostly Fiction" http://www.mostlyfiction.com/contemp/hazzard.htm
• "The New York Times" http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F01EEDE173CF931A25753C1A9659C8B63
• "The Observer" http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2003/dec/14/fiction.features
• "ReviewsofBooks.com" http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/great_fire/review/