Book Review: Winter Love by Han Suyín
First published in the UK in 1962, and then re-published in 2023 by Fox, Finch & Tepper, Winter Love is a short novel by Han Suyín set during the Second World War. Told in first person by the central character, Red (Bettina) is now married woman and a mother, reminiscing on the winter she met Mara.
From the moment she encounters her charismatic, stylish and recently-married new college classmate, Mara, Red is drawn into her orbit. Their friendship begins in the Blitz-torn London but quickly develops into an elicit, queer affair that takes them on a tumultuous, passionate, and often-strained journey spanning trips to rural Wiltshire and the Welsh valleys.
Pitching the rose-tined, romanticised view of wartime against the stark realities of living in London through the Blitz, Winter Love is a story fuelled by lust and longing, pleasure and obsession, delusion and pain, and volatility, built on the intense bond between Mara and Red as literal and metaphorical bombs drop on them. Suyín’s characters are full of complicated depth showcases softness and love one moment, and jealousy, resentment and fear the next.
“Whatever has happened, there is always that magic winter haunting and hurting me with its marvellous echoes. The shortest days of the year, when nothing had begun and nothing had ended, all the roads of life were alive, and time beat round me like a heart.”
A tale of Sapphic yearning and achingly sad heartbreak, Winter Love is also an exploration of internalised homophobia, societal pressures, and the destructive nature of rigid heteronormativity, shown through the secretive nature of their doomed affair. Suyín’s writing provides a commentary on the history of womanhood and queerness, spotlighting the gendered expectations that weigh heavy on Mara and Red.
A moody and atmospheric read told in intimate, explosive prose, Han Suyín’s Winter Love is a seemingly overlooked novella, that could be viewed as a landmark piece of lesbian literature.
This article includes affiliate links which support the future of Midlands Rainbow.
Comments