Who Is Martha? cover art

Who Is Martha?

Preview

Try Premium Plus free
1 credit a month to buy any audiobook in our entire collection.
Access to thousands of additional audiobooks and Originals from the Plus Catalogue.
Member-only deals & discounts.
Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Who Is Martha?

By: Marjana Gaponenko
Narrated by: Allan Robertson
Try Premium Plus free

$16.45 per month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $26.99

Buy Now for $26.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using voucher balance (if applicable) then card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions Of Use and Privacy Notice and authorise Audible to charge your designated credit card or another available credit card on file.
Cancel

About this listen

In this rollicking novel, 96-year-old ornithologist Luka Levadski foregoes treatment for lung cancer and moves from Ukraine to Vienna to make a grand exit in a luxury suite at the Hotel Imperial. He reflects on his past while indulging in Viennese cakes and savoring music in a gilded concert hall. Levadski was born in 1914, the same year that Martha - the last of the now-extinct passenger pigeons - died. Levadski himself has an acute sense of being the last of a species. He may have devoted much of his existence to studying birds, but now he befriends a hotel butler and another elderly guest, who also doesn't have much time left, to share in the lively escapades of his final days.

This gloriously written tale, in which Levadski feels "his heart pounding at the portals of his brain", mixes piquant wit with lofty musings about life, friendship, aging, and death.

©2014 Marjana Gaponenko (P)2015 ListenUp Production, LLC
Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Music Heartfelt Hotel

Critic Reviews

"A sweet, sad, sunny meditation on birds and music and the gentle approach of death." (John Rockwell, former New York Times arts critic and editor and founding director of Lincoln Center Festival)

"A book like a fantastic party, as unshakeable as a child's faith... Astonishes to the very end." ( Neue Zürcher Zeitung)
"With layers of inventive language, vividly drawn characters, history, music, birds, love, loneliness, and wisdom, this is a brilliant book, rich and satisfying as a Viennese torte." (Sy Montgomery, author of Birdology)

What listeners say about Who Is Martha?

Average Customer Ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.