Orlando

Orlando - this is the simple and euphonious name Virginia Woolf gave the hero - or rather the heroine? - of her novel disguised as a biography. Orlando is born in the age of Elizabeth I. The young nobleman succumbs to the charms of a Russian princess, is abandoned and seeks distraction in writing, goes to Constantinople as an ambassador and returns to Britain after a mysterious metamorphosis into a woman. Here, Orlando finally marries a man, following the uptight social constraints of the Victorian era.
With Orlando, Virginia Woolf light-footedly traverses several centuries, breaking down social and gender boundaries in passing and creating a hero with her dazzling protagonist who could not be more modern.