This is the story of Mary, a young girl born in a beautiful city full of rose gardens and fluttering kites. When she is still very small, Mary meets Lanmo, a shining golden snake, who becomes her very best friend.
The snake visits Mary many times, he sees her city change, become sadder as bombs drop and war creeps in. He sees Mary and her family leave their home, he sees her grow up and he sees her fall in love.
But Lanmo knows that the day will come when he can no longer visit
“Incredibly moving, yet joyful. It made me cry” – Observer
“After entering Kennedy’s world, it’s hard to find a way out … In The Little Snake, the swift emotional slippages click along, one after another, sentence after sentence, like an intricate concatenation of rainbow-bright dominoes. Funny, surprising and unexpected … Kennedy’s prose – like the endlessly unreeling speculations of her most interesting characters – is simultaneously logical and illogical, sad and funny, simple and profound, turning over and over in endless permutations, like an elegant small snake wrestling against the constraints of its own shiny and menacing skin” – New York Times
“Teaches its protagonists lessons about cruelty, mortality and above all, love … [An] enchanting modern fairy tale … A fable for our time … Kennedy’s
“A miniature fable … In this bitter age of broken borders, this timely, timeless story’s large helping of sugar is not unwelcome” – Sunday Times
“As for brave, kind heroines, you can’t do better than A.L. Kennedy’s The Little Snake, about a girl who one day finds a handsome, vain snake wrapped