The Dust That Falls from Dreams by Louis de Bernières review – an epic tale of love and war

An era filled with grief and uncertainty is vividly brought to life in a first world war story that ranges from England to France and Afghanistan

The crime writer PD James, who was born in 1920, once attributed her choice of a genre drenched in death to having grown up at a time when almost everyone was mourning someone who had died during the first world war.

This era of deep grief provides the atmosphere and theme of The Dust That Falls from Dreams. Epically telling a story of love against a background of war, this ninth work of fiction from Louis de Bernières most resembles, in form and effect, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. That book, published two decades ago, made the author’s name but has subsequently overshadowed it.

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