Go Set A Watchman

Title: Go Set A Watchman
Author: Harper Lee
Translator: Berliani Mantili Nugrahani & Esti Budihabsari
Publisher: Penerbit Qanita
Publication date: September 2015
288 pages

I am sure most of us love the American classic, To Kill a Mockingbird. It's hard not to love this Pulitzer Prize winning novel that in 1999 voted as Best Novel of the Century. After publishing this novel in 1960s, there's no work of Lee published again thus people keep asking about whether Harper Lee is a one-book-wonder. She answered her devoted readers' curiosity with a dignified silence.

Go Set A Watchman was initially written down in 1950s, before To Kill A Mockingbird,  and originally rejected by the publisher. Assumed to have been lost, the manuscript was discovered in late 2014 by Lee's lawyer, Tonja Carter, who was assigned to appraise Lee's assets. She re-examined Lee's safe deposit box and found a manuscript of Go Set A Watchman in it. She contacted Lee and passed the manuscript on to Lee's agent, Andrew Nurnberg and on February 3, 2015, HarperCollins announced that they would publish Go Set A Watchman.

The book was having an awesome response. It was sold 1,1 million copies on the first week and beat the sale of Harry Potter and 50 Shades of Grey.

The book still delivers the same characters and setting. If you miss Jean 'Scout' Louise and her father, Atticus, here they are. But Scout is 26 years old and works in New York now. One day she returns home to visit her aging father and found out that everything changes. Her homecoming turns bittersweet when she learns disturbing truth about her family, the town and the people dearest to her.

Highly recommended. Unforgettable novel about wisdom, humanity, passion and humour. A life-time favourite book.

The author, Harper Lee, is 89 now. She lives in Monroeville, Alabama, blind and deaf.  

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