The character I found really interesting with Gen, the translator. Relationships also form between the hostages, despite them not sharing the same language. Mr Hosokawa’s translator Gen forms a strong bond with a young female terrorist, Mr Hosokawa himself plays one of the generals at chess and another of the terrorists turns out to have a beautiful voice and is taught by Roxanne.
The relationship between the terrorists and hostages is very interesting – the situation goes on for over 4 months and a bond forms between some of the captors and hostages (known as Stockholm syndrome). Before long, all the women and children are released, except for Roxanne Cos, who is kept for leverage. The only problem is that the president isn’t there – he chose not to attend the event to watch his favourite soap opera so it is left up to the vice president to deal with the terrorists.
The terrorists are a group described as being from the jungle in this South American country, who led by 3 generals, want to kidnap the president in order to negotiate the release of political prisoners. As she is finishing her song, the lights go out and the distinguished group soon realise that they have been invaded by a group of terrorists. The president of the unnamed South American country where the book is set, is hoping Mr Hosokawa will build factories to invest in their country. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different continents become compatriots, intimate friends, and lovers.īel Canto begins as world famous opera singer Roxanne Coss is performing for a group of high powered businessmen and politicians, in honour of Mr Hosokawa, a Japanese business man and opera enthusiast. It is a perfect evening – until a band of gun-wielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage. Roxane Coss, opera’s most revered soprano, has mesmerised the international guests with her singing. Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country’s vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honour of the powerful businessman Mr. Bel Canto has won many awards including The Women’s Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
We always make suggestions and then vote and Bel Canto was chosen (which was great as it was on my TBR). The Shoreham by Sea book club are following the Chichester Libraries Reading Challenge this year and the choice for November was a prize winning book.
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