British author Louis de Bernières. PHOTO/WIKICOMMONS
“Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides.”
So begins the classic passage from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, the story of a World War Two romance between an Italian army captain and a young Greek woman. The lines have become so popular that they are used in wedding ceremonies.
But, speaking at the Irrawaddy Literary Festival in Mandalay on Sunday, the man behind the book, British novelist and poet Louis de Bernières, said: “I seem to have written the ultimate definition of love, but I’ve never been in love … It’s a bit sad.”
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin became a best-seller when it was published in 1994 and was adapted into a film starring Nicholas Cage in 2001.
De Bernières is the author of four books and a fifth, based on his grandfather’s life and set in various countries across the globe, is upcoming.
He is separated with two children.
The Irrawaddy Literary Festival, which runs through Tuesday, is giving a stage to both Myanmar and international poets and authors including de Bernières and Booker Prize winning Irish author Anne Enright.
